


Pyode Amedha

by CatAssTrophy



Category: Alien vs Predator (2004), Predator, The Predator (2018)
Genre: F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2020-04-12 15:26:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 66,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19134841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatAssTrophy/pseuds/CatAssTrophy
Summary: Eris once thought her life wasn't where she wanted it to be, now she wished she had that life still. Taken from Earth by Bad Bloods, Eris has no idea what she is in for, but getting the hell out of her situation is definitely the top of her list. (Brought over from FF.net)





	1. Chapter 1

“My life… Isn’t what I want it to be.” Eris thought to herself, staring at the sky as the clouds began to build up. It would rain soon and she knew she would have to find some shelter at some point. Letting out a heavy breath she let her mind wonder.

It had been months since she had a roof over her head, ever since she got kicked out of her ex-boyfriend’s apartment due to physical altercations. He didn’t start off as a bad guy, but over the course of time and stressful situations, his true colors began to shine through.

It was a romantic story to say the least, one that she would never have thought would happen to her. Being around 20 when she met Nolan at a local book and coffeeshop, their chance in meeting was based on pure fate: a blizzard. She had gone there earlier in the day to pick up a brand-new book that she had been waiting all summer for its release. After pushback and pushback, it finally had a solid release date that would came out in the middle of November. Though news weather warnings suggested that she stay indoors, Eris knew she had to have that book and would not wait any longer.

Deciding to brave the storm before it got too bad, she made her way to pick up the book. As she entered the building, she made a B-line to the science fiction section before immediately finding what she was looking for. Right on the ‘new book display’, she grabbed the book and looked it over in awe. Smiling at its cover while tracing her hand over its hard surface, she couldn’t wait to open it up and start reading it.

Bringing it to the counter to ring out, she noticed the clerk talking with other employees with worried eyes. When they caught her own gaze, they informed her that they would not be opening the doors because of how bad the weather had gotten. They were on lockdown. Looking outside, the sheet of snow blaring outside would secure her in. At least she had her own book that could occupy her time until the storm died down.

Sitting on a chair by the fireplace, Eris got comfortable before opening the book she had been waiting for; she had no idea how long it would be so she might as well enjoy herself. As the employees continued their work around her, she figured that she was the only customer in the store.

Continuing further passed chapter one, Eris was about to start the second chapter when the lights began to flicker. Looking up at the ceiling above, she watched until the power refused to kick back on. Taking in a deep breath, she focused her eyes back on her book, but the firelight wasn’t enough for her to read without enduring a headache, and this was no time to get a migraine.

Like animals at a watering hole, everyone including the employees in the store, had gravitated to the fireplace. There weren’t many people there, maybe 5 or 6, but they all seemed to be employees except for the man who approached her left. Looking at him, she noticed that he had the same book in his hand.

Striking up a conversation, they began to talk about their interest in sci-fi which led to other commonalities until what seemed like minutes past when the power came back on. Checking her watch, they had been stuck in the blizzard without power for a couple of hours, but because of Nolan it went by extremely too fast.

When the lights kicked back on, she could study his features even more. Looking at his strong jawline and every other masculine feature she could see that wasn’t covered in clothes, she couldn’t believe someone so good looking was talking to her. She wasn’t ugly by any means, but with a unique sense of humor, she was known as the weird girl and apparently when you’re weird, you’re a stigma.

From there, they exchanged numbers and it wasn’t long until they found themselves going on date after date before hitting it off and deciding to move in together after months of pure bliss. After years of dating, everything seemed like it was going great and everything falling into place. She could see herself marrying him and having a wonderful life together. He was supportive in every way which meant the world to her. And then she lost her job.

It seemed like just a bump in the road and Nolan didn’t mind picking up the extra slack financially. It went on for a month as Eris tried to find a job when she noticed his patience growing thin. He would make backhanded comments to her about being lazy, not knowing that she was seriously avidly trying to find work. After the second month he seemed to become very controlling. “My money my rules” was a phrase he began to say, belittling her at every chance.

From there, it progressively got worse until the day he physically put hands on her. Fighting back, the moment she had a chance she left the apartment. She never thought that she’d be one of those girls in an abusive relationship. But since she was, she knew that she would never be that girl who stayed in one. If he hit her once, he ruined any chance of ever mending that relationship and solidifying their forever fate of being broken up.

After leaving the apartment with whatever clothes she had on her body, she knew she had nowhere to go. Her parents were both deceased from a car crash many years back, she had no siblings, and she had just moved to Alaska when she had met Nolan so she really didn’t have any friends and all of her savings was used for renting the apartment and her couple months of being jobless. After the first month, she tried to stay sufficient and not ask him for things, using her own savings to pay her part.

Everyone else she could possibly know that might be able to help her were from work, but they were only acquaintances who she hadn’t talked to since she lost her job. They weren’t even an option to talk to.

She couldn’t understand how she had not seen that side of him before. Years of what seemed like perfection was thrown out the window and she couldn’t tell if it was a good or bad thing. If she had never lost her job, would everything still be wonderful? Or, was this a blessing in disguise of who she would have married if things went south later on?

That was a question she thought about less and less each day. Feeling the rain begin to trickle on her face, she closed her eyes and welcomed it. She was happy that the winter months had passed and it was summer, and this one was hot. She still had plans on finding a job, but that dream seemed to move further and further away.

“Hey Pike, gonna try to getta room tonight?” A voice called from above her. Looking up, she noticed that it was good ole Jimmy looking down at her, smiling with his mostly toothless smile.

Pike was a name she gave herself while she was on the street. She didn’t want anyone to know her real one since this wasn’t the real Eris. When choosing, she knew she had to pick something unique and Pike seemed to be fitting since the next time a man decided to put his hands on her, she’d cut off his head and place it on a pike displayed for all to see. After Nolan, she wasn’t going to allow any sort of abuse to come to her again.

“Nah, it’s been pretty hot outside that there is no need to take up a room.” Eris sat up and crossed her legs as Jimmy backed up and sat down next to her.

“Yeah, only a competition when ya in the winter months.” She learned to never sit too close to Jimmy, always getting sprayed by his saliva in the past. He was a kind soul, one of the first people she had ever talked to while being homeless.

“That’s true, and I only needed to compete during the tail end of winter. No telling what this winter will bring if I don’t get a job.” She frowned at the fact of being homeless for that long. She wanted to work, but with her lack of clothes and place to live and shower, a lot of places wouldn’t give her the time of day.

“That’s why ya wait for ya dividend.” A dividend was an allowance of many everyone in the state of Alaska was allotted if they had lived there for at least two years. They usually were in the amount of a thousand dollars that she definitely planned on saving. The dividends used to be a lot more, but since it was capped she’d only get a grand. But hey, a free grand was a free grand, she wasn’t complaining like she used to when she had a home and place to live. Taking it for granted one year, definitely not taking it for granted this year.

“That’s true. I’ll have to go to the bank soon to see if I can get issued a card or something. That’s cash I don’t want to be carrying around out here.”

“Well where’re they gonna send it? That tree ova there?” Jimmy pointed to the tree behind her with his crooked hand as he began to laugh at his own joke. “And whatsa difference between losin’ cash and losin’ a card? Both’ll get you fucked either way.”

Eris couldn’t help but laugh, too. Jimmy may have been out of the game of life for a while, but he was still oh so smooth of a talker, and he made a point. “Yeah, well at least I can keep a certain amount in my checking to prohibit from too much of a small shopping spree one might endure.”

“That’ll do it.” He gave a brisk nod as he began to stand up, casting a shadow over the sitting Eris.

“You heading to South tonight?” Eris stood as well, knowing that the rain was about to pick up and soak her. The light drizzle going on was nice and not enough to dampen her clothes too much, but the clouds in the distance promised that the drizzle would soon escalate into a downpour.

“Nah, I’mma go to Cedar’s and see if I can’t gather some funds ova there.” He turned his back to her as he looked into the sky and predicted the same thing that Eris had thought about.

“Alright, well good luck Jimmy! I hope you get a good amount.” She smiled her full smile at his back as he continued to walk on.

“You as well, Pike. Stay dry!” He was sincere as he brought his hand up and waved while he continued to walk away.

And there she was again, alone in the hot summer rain.

Setting her sights on the direction South was in, she began to walk towards the street until her feet finally hit the pavement of the sidewalk. Hearing the subtle splashes her feet made each time they hit a puddle, Eris began to shutter when she felt a small amount of water begin to make its way in her shoes. She looked down at her beaten up black shoes, a frown forming on her face. The shoes she had on had held up for so long, but with the weather changes, she knew they wouldn’t make it to winter. When she got her dividend, she would have to go buy a pair of new shows.

Looking up ahead, she continued to watch the clouds, noticing that there were definite dark spots heading towards her. Heavy rain indeed. Looking back at her feet, she knew her shoes would never be able to withstand whatever puddle those clouds would create, so she made the executive decision to make her way down an alley to hid between the buildings until whatever was to pour down would pass. As she crept her way behind a couple of buildings, she let her body slump down under a balcony; at least that would cover her a little bit from above while the building to her side shielded her from sideways rain.

Being alone wasn’t always fun, but they definitely had their perks. As she sat on the wet, cold ground beneath her, she looked into the amazing sky above. Though it was raining and the heavy clouds had caught up to her, it wasn’t dark outside. The sun was able to shine through certain parts of the clouds, making the weather the biggest oxymoron at the moment; sunny but raining. Either way, it was beautiful.

A half hour went by before the rain started to really pour down, even the somewhat shelter she had found was starting to prove useless in the rain. Picking herself back up, Eris began to walk back into the rain to see if she could find somewhere else to take cover. Continuing down the alley and making a few turns, the rain pouring down made it hard for her to see, the light from the sun had succumbed to the clouds, providing no light for her to make her way.

About to give up and just sit down and wait it out instead of risking injury, Eris was about to stop until she heard a scream coming from what seemed like mere feet in front of her. Stopping in her tracks, she began to squint her eyes to see if she could see something. Looking closer into the rain, she was caught off guard by a bright red jacket flying towards her. Taking a quick step to the side, she managed to dodge the object.

Approaching the bright red jacket in the rain proved a more difficult task than she could have imagined. Leaning over it, she let her hand extend out of her wet jacket to touch it, shocked when she noticed that a person occupied the jacket. It didn’t make sense to her; a person being thrown who knew how far towards her and landing this far away from where she was standing.

Bringing her face closer to the person to see if they were okay, she froze when she came to the upper half of the body. There was no head attached. Panic began to build in her throat as she whipped her head around to see if whoever did this was about to close in on her and repeat the process. As soon as her gaze turned to look behind her, the rain seemed to have stopped hitting her. It was as if she turned and was looking right at a wall. Peering her eyes upwards, she noticed a giant being standing over her.

Frozen.

She could feel her eyes grow wide as she began to back slowly away from the beast, feeling the rain hit her face once more as the figure disappeared in the sheet of rain between the two. It was then she saw a red glare begin to bounce off of the raindrops. Letting her eyes guide her to where the red lights were going, she noticed three little dots form on her chest. The moment her eyes left the dots, she scurried to her feet and began to run. Within an instant of her getting up, she heard a loud blast echo behind her, only imagining that that would be her if she were to have stayed.

Sprinting left and right through the alleyways, Eris couldn’t calculate where she was trying to go, but anywhere away from that killer was the best. Taking a moment to look behind her to see if it was following, she hit smack dab into an object in front of her. Catching herself before fully hitting the ground, she looked up to see what she had run into. It was the killer.

“Get away from me!” She began to scream while getting herself back up before taking off towards the opposite direction of where she was initially going, finding her way back into the alley. As she made the twists and turns, she was caught off guard once more as she felt something slip over her face, tightening up until she felt her feet lift off of the ground.

Bringing her hands onto the wire holding her up, she felt herself losing air as the wire began to cut deeper in her skin from the weight of her body dangling beneath it. When her feet felt ground once more, she tried to get whatever was on her face off but couldn’t. As her body began to shut down from the lack of air, she began to thrash on whatever she was lifted onto. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the creature coming towards her.

It stopped at her struggling body, gently kneeling down and shielding her from the rain once more. With blurry vision, she had no idea what it even was and she had a feeling that if the wire continued in its placement on her that she never would know what had killed her.

Gurgles began to escape Eris’ throat as she felt her final moments encroaching onto her. It was then she saw the creature bring its hand to her face, stroking it gently with her having no energy to protest. Bringing its hand to the top of her face where the wire was snug, she involuntarily took in a deep breath as she felt the wire loosen and fall off of her face. Coughs and gasps filled the air, as she struggled to get onto her hands and knees, watching the blood from the cut under her jaw cover the ground beneath her face. Feeling a hand lift up and around her stomach, she watched as the ground began to drift further from her reach. Continuing to look down, Eris froze again as she felt the creature holding her begin to run, watching the solid ground beneath her turn into even further ground below. It was then she realized that whatever was holding her was jumping from rooftop to rooftop, holding her effortlessly in its grasp.

Eris tried to keep her head still as the adrenaline began to wear off and the pain began to radiate throughout her whole head. With each jump, she let out a scream of pain at each landing. It seemed like hours of this until she noticed that the ground beneath her was solid metal and instead of the rain falling on her, she heard it hitting the metal roof above. With a drenched and pain filled head, she lifted it the best she could to look at her surroundings. She had no idea where she was.

Red lights were illuminating the metal cage she was in as she heard the door behind her air seal shut with a ‘Pshhhhh’ sound. When the noise from the door stopped, she felt herself freefall back onto the floor; another painful scream echoed within the walls of whatever she was in. Her face felt like it was on fire. Tears began to well up in her eyes as she brought her hands to her neck where the wire had cut. She could practically smell the blood escaping her face.

She remained on the floor, clutching her face while wondering what the hell was going on. She hadn’t even come close to feeling this pain since she left Nolan after he had hit her in the face. Shutting her eyes tight, she tried to remember her oath to never let something harm her again. Anyone who dared to harm her she would kill, but whatever this was wasn’t the ‘anyone’ she pictured. Opening her eyes to full focus, she looked around the best she could without moving her head, noticing four black-taloned toes right in front of her.

Bringing her eyes up to study what was in front of her, she noticed metal shin guards with various scratches deep within the material. From there she found a metal plate framing the kneecap with straps that connected behind it, leading up to a bare thigh with what looked like loose fishnet pressed against the skin. Trying to lift her eyes any further caused her pain, but whatever this leg belonged to wasn’t something she was excited about seeing.

Feeling a warm hand on the back of her neck, she winced at the pain as she felt her body lift up to come face to face with the creature that the leg belonged to, and she was correct in not looking forward to seeing it. When she brought her eyes to the creature’s face, she found herself looking at a mask. It looked like a metallic combination between a sleek motorcycle helmet and a ski mask someone would wear to rob a house. Connecting her eyes to where she assumed their eyes were, she tried her best to stare daggers into them without fright coming off of her. She was certain this is where she was going to die, so she would stay true to herself and not die a frightened coward; no bully would ever take over her again.

The being began to bring its other hand up, lifting up her face to examine the wound, ignoring the gasps of pain. Tilting its head before bringing their hand to a case hanging from its leg, they began to open it up, taking a needle filled with green inside of the syringe. Letting a little bit of the liquid fall out of the needle, Eris began to struggle in its grasp at the sight. Turning their face back to her, they plunged the needle in the wound, ignoring her protests.

Another scream echoed throughout the metal walls as she was once again dropped to the ground. Bringing her hands up, Eris noticed that she couldn’t feel the wound anymore, even though she was still subtly bleeding from it. With confused eyes, she brought her sights back to him. “What the hell did you do?!” She was grateful for the pain to be gone, but he was the one who had caused this wound in the first place so a ‘thank you’ was definitely out of the question. Without the pain crippling her any further, Eris mustered up all of her courage to stand before the giant humanoid.

Monstrous. That was the only word that could come to her thoughts as she found herself crooking her neck upward to look at the tall being standing above her. It’s chest heaving up and down as she began to feel the heat coming off of its body which she was feet away from. Trailing her eyes down to study it more, her eyes grew wide as she noticed the rippling muscle and tone its body had. Whatever it was, there was no way she was going to damage it, not the way she was now. It was then her eyes caught its lower half and from then on, she definitely found whatever this was to be a male. Quickly darting her eyes back up to his, she flinched when the creature began to make a sound that almost mimicked laughter.

“What are you?” Eris forced herself to speak once the creature finally stopped making the laughing noise. She didn’t even know if it understood her, but she didn’t know what else to do. It was like meeting someone who didn’t speak the same language as you, you just talk louder and slower because you think that that helps when it frankly does not.

A few more huffs came from the creature followed by muffled echoes. Tilting her head to the side, she clearly didn’t know what it meant.

Her eyes darted to his hands when they began to move to his face. Taking a step back and mentally preparing herself with whatever was about to happen, she watched while he began to pull out cords from the mask he was wearing. When the puffs of air filtered out of the mask, a mechanical noise filled the silent room, bouncing off of the walls and echoing in her ears. While he steadied the front of the mask in on of his gigantic hands, the other guided it off slowly before exposing its face.

Eris’ face dropped. She had no idea what she was looking at and she could feel her entire body collapse, bringing her to sitting on her butt while her legs scooped around her backside, knees facing forward. She didn’t believe what she was seeing.

The first thing that she noticed were its amber eyes staring right into her soul. With sunken in sockets, the darkness around them only seemed to brighten its eyes even more. When she was finally able to look away from its eyes, she noticed that its mouth was definitely not human. Four giant tusks, one attached to each upper and lower mandible protruding out of its face and in front of its other teeth; six that she could see, two on top and four below encased by the mandibles. Next, she trailed up to its forehead, which extended way beyond that of a human, with mottled skin mixing between light golds and browns with random markings that she didn’t know if they were scars or normal textures. On the side of its face she noticed black cords coming down from it with golden rings in select ones, framing its foreign head. Following the black tresses, she noticed small needle like hairs coming out of the cheeks of its face. Whatever she was looking at was scariest thing she had ever seen.

Placing her face in her hands, Eris began to shake her head back and forth. What situation was she even in? She normally had a plan for different scenarios, but this was definitely something she never anticipated making a plan for. When Crazy Suzy talked about aliens on the streets, she would huff at her and walk away; alien scenarios weren’t real scenarios to worry about and now here she was in an alien scenario with no plan. She never thought in her life that she should have taken advice from Crazy Suzy.

Spreading her finger apart, she slowly lifted her head once more and looked at the creature between her digits. “I really don’t know what’s going on right now and an explanation would be pretty cool.” She spoke to him, as if he understood her. The only way to describe what she was feeling was disbelief. All of the fear escaped her body once she saw his face, she had turned into a ghost and now she was only feeling the one emotion. She was confused.

“Ooman,” Eris’ eyes were once again shot wide open when the creature began to talk. She could hear its guttural noise as she felt she almost heard him say ‘human’. “M-di h’dlak.” She heard his chuckle once more as she couldn’t even begin to imagine what he had just said, plus with the clicks he added in his speech she was just as lost as ever, stunned by its ability to even speak any sort of language with that mouth.  
Her astonishment was short lived when she felt her nose begin to twitch. Following that, her eyes began to squint as if she had just eaten something really sour. That smell. Whatever it was, was truly unbearable. It was something she had never even remotely smelled before. Looking up at him, her mouth regrettably gaped open, followed by her hands quickly covering it, as she wondered why the hell he was just now starting to smell so bad. When the creature seemed to flash her, what appeared to be a smile, she slammed back into reality. She was still confused as all get-out, but this was real and now was her time to plan out what she was going to do next.

Looking in both directions, all she could see were metal walls that looped into the black unknown. The red lighting didn’t help anything, only made everything more ominous than it needed to be. When she brought her sights back on him, she noticed his head cock to one side as his amber gaze still burned into her skin. She had no idea what he was thinking and wasn’t too thrilled on the idea of finding out. Taking her hands from her mouth, she placed them on the ground before quickly getting up from her once crouched position and started to run.

A roar filled the walls behind her before making its way to ring in her ears as she ran, fading into the distance in front of her. As she felt her legs try to move even faster than what they were, she had no idea where she was going except for as far away from that thing as possible. Eyes more focused than they had ever been with her senses heightened due to the adrenaline flowing through her veins, Eris continued to run to try to find any way out of whatever she was in or at least a good hiding spot. When she saw the red light that illuminated the metal walls grow brighter, she felt her spirits lift thinking she was finding a way out. Then in one second, her spirits crumbled back down. Out of breath and out of hope, she placed her hands on her knees to catch her breath as she looked at the creature standing right where she had left him.

“A fucking circle?!” She managed to speak through tired lungs, the creature giving another chuckle as it began to walk towards her. “I ran in a fucking circle.” She said quietly to herself this time in disbelief. As he approached her, she felt her body naturally reject him coming any closer as she turned around to run again, this time more so for a hiding spot. When her back was towards him and ten steps later, she found herself moving her legs but no progress was being made. Looking over her shoulder and up as the creature who was holding onto the back of her shirt, Eris let out a defeated sigh as she now tried to aimlessly struggle in its powerful grasp.

“Just let me go and I won’t tell anyone about your circle!” Eris always found her sarcasm come out whenever she was in a stressful situation. Even growing up when her family had family meetings, she found herself laughing during awkward silences. It didn’t mean she found the situation funny, but her body didn’t know how to react any other way. After her parents died, awkward laughter was replaced with sarcastic remarks, and this situation was no different.

The creature easily carried Eris even though she was struggling. Walking down the dim hallway, he seemed to be in no hurry as he let his free hand trail along the side of the metal wall. Once his hand hit what looked like an outlet on the wall, a piece of the metal flew upward, revealing a room compacted with other women.

As Eris was carried through the door and into the room filled with women, her struggles stopped. “What the…” she tried to wrap her mind around what she was seeing, but nothing made sense. As she looked at the women through terrible lighting, it was apparent that they were all in shock, looking at her with silent tears escaping their eyes and low cries from their mouths. She froze. What the hell was going on here? How long had they been in here? What even was ‘here’? She hardly noticed when the creature opened up one of the many woman-filled cages and set her down in one.

When the metal gate closed behind her, she whipped around to look up at him with curious eyes. “What do you want from me?” her brows furrowed as her confusion had come right back. Fear, confusion, disbelief, scared, anxious, nervous, and any other synonyms of; Eris was lost.

“H’dlak.” It spoke once more before turning its mottled back and heading out of the room, not before taunting some of the other girls by hissing and rattling their cages.

It responded to her, but did that mean that it knew what she was saying and replying in its own native tongue? She couldn’t grasp it as she turned around and looked at her cell.

All four walls were bars, she was in about a ten-foot by ten-foot cage. The ground beneath her was smooth, didn’t even appear to be a single scratch on it despite the two other women in her cell trying to find a weakness at the base of the bars that connected into the floor. Looking up, she saw that the bars also connected to the ceiling. Turning around and placing her hands onto the cold steel, she gave it a good tug before bringing her hands back to her sides, “Yep, I’m fucked.”

Turning back around, she started to study the two women on their hands and knees on the floor, searching for some sort of miracle weakness to get out. Quickly scanning the room to the other cages, she noticed that she had the most active cell. The others were filled with three to four girls all huddled in the middle of their prison holding each other and crying. She didn’t blame them, she wanted to curl up and cry too, but what she wanted even more so than that was to get the hell out of here.

“What’s going on?” She walked towards the other two women, crouching down next to them. The first to look at her was a dirty blonde-haired woman with what seemed to be piercing blue eyes, even through the dim light they were creepily shining at her. Her face was freckled and her features smooth as can be. Eris’ eyes moved to her big lips when she began to speak.

“Damn predators,” She spat out while looking at Eris, making the connection that she was her new cellmate before turning her head back to the base of the bars, “I can’t believe they fuckin’ got me.” Eris was as confused as ever.

“Why do you keep calling them predators?” The brighter blonde-haired girl began to speak, her dark eyes meeting the other girl.

“What the fuck else are we supposed to call them? We’re clearly their prey so that would make them a predator.” The twang in her voice alerted Eris that she wasn’t from here; here being Alaska and not the metal box filled with aliens.

“I guess you’re right.” They both continued, moving from one bar to the next.

“How long have you been in here?” Eris asked, knowing that the two girls bypassed her question since they didn’t know what was going on. The term predator seemed right, though, just like in the Walking Dead how the group of people that Rick Grimes was in called the zombies ‘Walkers’, it just seemed fitting.

“Me, I’d say ‘bout a week.” The southern girl spoke while stopping for a moment to sit down and take a break. The heat was incredible, they were all sweating just sitting there.

“Couple days.” The other one spoke as she, too, sat down.

“30 Seconds,” Eris remarked as she also sat right next to them. “Why aren’t you guys like them?” She let her head fling to the side motioning at the other girls who paid them no attention.

“Cryin’ ain’t gonna get me outta here.” Blue Eyes spoke as Eris felt her orbs on her. “Why aren’t you cryin’?”

“I feel confused more than any other emotion right now. I’ll probably be crying later, but right now I am in complete shock.” She spoke truthfully at her situation. She had no time to process tears right now. Bringing her hand to her throat, she felt the dried blood form along in a ‘u’ shape under her jaw.

“That’s how I was when I first got here, too.” Brown Eyes spoke up, finally looking over at her.

“What do you think they want?” Eris didn’t know how long they would be willing to talk before wanting to go back to trying to escape, so she was going to get as much information as she possible could.

“Dunno,” Blue eyes began, lifting her forearm up to wipe the sweat away from her forehead, “But I don’t wanna find out.”

“We’ve been trying to find a way out since I got here.” Brown eyes did the same, wiping the sweat from her forehead as well.

“Were there other girls in here or just you two?” She was curious why these girls were together amongst the rest.

“Alegra was in here by herself before I got here.” Brown Eyes spoke, now Eris knew that Blue Eyes was known as ‘Alegra’.

“They kept gatherin’ more girls up but puttin’em in different cells. It was a couple stops before they put Cara in here with me.” Alegra spoke as she confirmed that Brown Eyes was also known as ‘Cara’.

“Do you think they are sorting us out? We seem to be the only ones not huddled in here.” Eris couldn’t help but notice. It seemed that all other cells had a theme of crying women in them, except this one. This was where women who were still level headed were. They were finding ways to escape, calm, and not hysterical.

The two girls seemed to stop and look at each other for a moment before simultaneously looking over at Eris. They had not connected that detail yet, but now that she was in there with them and brought it up, it was apparent that it was on their mind.

“Maybe.” The southerner brought both of her hands in front of her while playing with her fingernails. “It does seem kind of odd to me. Maybe we’ll be killed off for being different or maybe sold for a good price.”

“Sold for a good price?” Cara turned her head to Eris before settling her gaze back on Alegra.

“In the intergalactic slave trade or whatever. What else do you think we’re in here for?” Alegra made a point, and with everything going on it wasn’t too farfetched of an idea. Though, the thought of an alien species collecting humans for a space trade was a scary thought indeed. Expecting the worst was a good idea, then whatever would happen wouldn’t be too bad. But what if their worst ideas weren’t the worst ideas?

“I don’t know.” Cara replied while getting back on her hands and knees to try to find a weakness at the base of the bar again.

“So what’s your name?” Alegra continued digging through her nails before she looked back up at Eris.

“Pike.” Eris replied without missing a beat. Even though she was in a prison with two other strangers, she didn’t want to get too personable with them. She wasn’t back on her feet and whoever this person was, it still wasn’t the true Eris. She had to keep her front a little while longer to try to get her through whatever was happening, a persona that would strengthen her from her typical weaker self. She didn’t find herself to be a weak individual, but there was a clear difference between house broken, job having Eris and living on the streets, dumpster diving Pike.

“Like the fish?” Cara spoke up, continuing further down the bars to the corner.

“Or the thing you put heads on.” Her reply came with a small laugh. She liked the name Pike and had become accustomed to it. She knew it was weird to other people, but it was part of her and always would be.

Everyone’s eyes darted to the door that Eris had just entered moments ago as screaming filled the room. Standing up, Eris grabbed the bars and poked her head as far as she could from between them. The same Predator that had grabbed now had someone else, taunting her and teasing her as he played with her in his grasp.

“Leave her alone!” Eris called out, hearing Cara and Alegra behind her with shushing noises. The Predator’s eyes shot over to her, mandibles flaring as he put the other girl down and made his way over to her.

Even though the room was already hot, Eris could feel it get warmer as the Predator made its way to her before he was there standing in front of the cell. His chest heaved up and down ad he let a huff exhale through his mouth.

“Ooman,” He spoke that word once more, one that Eris knew was human. Everything else was a blur, but she knew he was speaking directly to her and stating what she was to him.

“Predator.” She boldly spoke back as she looked up at him through the bars. She could feel her heart racing, pounding in her chest as she began to contemplate whether she regretted her decision to call him out or not. She wasn’t used to dealing with alien creatures, and with dealing with humans she always stood up for the lower man. It was hardwired in her DNA to stand up for people, breaking that habit in front of a new race wasn’t going to break that.

His amber eyes blinked slowly at her as he reached a hand in to fall onto her neck, applying the smallest amount of pressure. He had dealt with humans a lot in his day, so he knew exactly what kind of pressure he could bestow on her. When her eyes widened but she didn’t back away or struggle against him, he cocked his head back once more to look at her. Her eyes were filled with fear, but that wasn’t all that was in them. Watching her flicker her eyes back and forth to each one of his, he knew that this ooman was far different than the ones he had obtained previously.

She felt his black talons prick her skin as she continued to hold onto the bar and look at him. She definitely regretted saying what she did, but there was no backing down from it now. She had challenged him and he was taking her up on it. “Leave her alone.” She boldly spoke once more, feeling the hand on her neck tighten even more at her words. She knew that the creature could easily destroy her, but she wondered why he wasn’t. First, he had chased her down, caught her with a wire rope that cut into her skin, brought her on whatever they were on, shoved a needle so far up her throat she could feel it tickle the back of her neck, inject something into her that stopped the incredible pain she was in, not chase her when she ran away, gently picked her up by the back of her clothes instead of her skin when she ran into him again, place her in a cell, and now held her throat with a gentle but firm grasp. Why was he being so gentle? What the hell did they do with humans?

Her thoughts were interrupted when another Predator entered the room. The only reason she knew another one had entered was from the blaring roar that shot through her ears and a vibration rattle her body. Feeling the warm hand leave her throat, she grabbed her ears before looking towards the entrance to the room. There another Predator stood, arms pulled behind his body with a slight bend to the knee. Her eyes were brought back to the one in front of her when he, too, let out a scream.

As she watched the two get closer to each other, she heard them talk in their language as their mandibles flared at each other. She had never been so happy to be in a cage in her life, separated from whatever was about to happen. There was a lot of gesturing to the free woman who was huddled in a corner with her head between her knees and gestures in Eris’ direction as well.

The one who had grabbed Eris earlier was now tilting his head downward as the other Predator continued its speech with a prideful chest. Eris could only guess that the new Predator had won whatever argument that they were in.

Watching the defeated Predator grab the girl and lock her up, Eris focused back on the one who had put him in his place, daggers being thrown her way with his eyes. She didn’t know why he was so mad at her, but that was something she hoped to find out never. Amber Eyes gave her a quick look too before they both left the room.

“Good job.” Alegra spoke up from behind her, she had completely forgotten she had other people next to her.

“Well, someone had to stand up to him.” Eris truly believed that as she turned her back against the bars, sliding down them gingerly before her butt hit the floor.

“No, someone has to get us out of here, not make waves,” Cara uncovered her own ears, “And especially not from someone in my cell.” She let out a slight laugh, followed by a snort from Alegra and then one from Eris. They were all in this shithole together, but luckily, they were in the same prison.

They laugh were short lived when the floor beneath them began to rumble. “What’s going on?” Eris felt her heart race once more as it felt like an earthquake was happening, looking up to see if the ceiling was going to cave in on her since this one was definitely rocky.

“New destination.”

“Where?” Eris held onto the bars, not liking all the shaking that was going on right now.

“We don’t know.” Cara’s voice was low.

A new destination meant that they were flying, confirming what Eris didn’t want to believe all along: She was on a spacecraft. Closing her eyes tightly while the shaking progressed along with loud noises before easing off a bit, Eris knew she wasn’t ready for whatever was about to happen. Were they going to find more women to pick up or was this their final stop before plummeting into the deep depths of space?

Her eyes opened when she felt a hand touch hers. Looking up, she saw Alegra on one side of her and Cara on the other.

“We’ll figure it out.” Alegra spoke, her southern accent soothed her a little. They had been in here longer than she had and even though they didn’t know much, they still knew more than her. They had gone through these pickups and liftoffs before, which comforted her. If they had lived through the previous ones, she knew she would be able to live though this one. Hell, Eris didn’t even like planes so this definitely wasn’t her cup of tea. Tightening her grip on both of the girls’ hands, she let herself close her eyes once more as she placed her head between the two metal bars, letting the cool metal take over her mind.

“I hope so.” She let the words slip out of her mouth when she felt the ground beneath her start to ease up, calming a bit. The loud noise from before began to diminish, letting quieter clinks and clanks fill the tear-filled room. If she had to be in any cell, she was glad it was this one. She wasn’t too sure how she would handle herself in any of the other ones. Here, she had two strong women next to her which only pushed her to be strong as well. “And when we do, we’ll give them hell.”


	2. Chapter 2

A couple of hours had passed since Eris had felt the ship take off. It wasn’t an experience she was necessarily fond of, but she definitely didn’t have a choice in the matter. Looking at the girls all over the room, some of the groups had stopped crying, some were still doing so, and other seemed to be going insane. 

The groups who were crying were still huddled in the middle of their cells, backs facing outward towards the bars while their faces were all facing inward. They had created their own space to avoid looking at the Predators. If they weren’t in a situation like this, Eris would assume that they had something to hide so they were making absolutely no way for you to look in at what they were keeping secret. 

The groups that had stopped crying had separated from each other, still keeping their distance from the bars just in case a Predator decided they wanted to stick their giant hands in and grab them. Their eyes were lifeless as they either stood or sat still. As Eris stared at them, they didn’t even bother to look back, almost like they were empty inside; husks of what they once were and trying to reboot. 

There was one cell that seemed to be going ape shit, though. The commotion coming from their cell made Eris want to go over there and slap them all, they were incredibly annoying to listen to. Loud screams of ‘let me out’ and ‘get me the fuck out of here’ were played on repeat as everyone else had to listen to it. Sure, Eris knew that they had reason to be so stressed out, but there was no way in hell they were going to be let out. Now everyone had to listen to it. They were all stressed and in the same situation, their screams were one hundred and fifty percent the last thing any of them needed right now. Running around their cell screaming at the top of their lungs, panicking, flipping out, kicking the bars, grabbing the bars and trying to shake them lose, not helping in the slightest. Whatever they were doing wasn’t getting the Predator’s attention anyway, so Eris wished they would just stop. 

Then there was her cell. Three women who were all sitting with their backs against the bars, one on each side leaving one wall of bars completely empty. Eris had found a small rubber ball in her pocket, so they were gingerly passing it along to each other, making sure not to lose it and lose the only entertainment that they had. Sure, the screaming ladies were entertainment, but they were only entertaining the first ten minutes of their rampage. Now, hours later, they were no longer entertaining. 

“Guys,” Eris spoke out while stopping the rolling rubber ball between her stretched out lets, making sure she used as much coverage to not let the ball slip through the bars along with the other girls. “I have to use the bathroom, what do I do?” She had no idea how she was going to go but seeing as the whole room wasn’t filled with urine and feces, she figures they all got to use the bathroom at some point since Alegra had been there for nearly a week and Cara a few days. The cell was spotless. 

“They take us cell by cell for food and bathroom breaks.” Cara caught the ball that Eris had rolled to her, rolling it to Alegra in turn. 

“So, how long until you think they’ll do that?” She watched Cara roll the ball to Alegra. She tried not to take her eyes off of it, not wanting to ruin the game for everyone by looking in another direction and letting the ball roll through the bars. 

“Anytime now I would think,” Alegra contributed as she picked up the rubber ball, examining it with her thumb and index finger before rolling it back to Eris. “It’s like clockwork, but we don’t get to see the time. We haven’t figured that part out yet. Seems like a set schedule, though, at least that’s how its been since I have been here.” 

Instinctively catching the ball and rolling it back to Cara, Eris thought it over for a moment. It had felt like hours since she had last seen one of the gargantuan monsters, not that she wanted their company but not knowing what was happening on their end was unnerving. “Well, I hope it is soon. Since my nerves have calmed down my tank has realized that it is full and I will definitely need to be relieving it at some point in the near future.”

They shared a laugh, all having been there since they had to hold it. It was like being a dog left in a kennel at home: You had to wait for your masters to come home and let you out to use the bathroom. If you went before they came to get you, you’d be soaking in your own shit until they got home. And if that happened, you’d get your nose rubbed in it. Eris was not too thrilled about getting her face smacked into her own bodily fluids. She was used to going to the bathroom outside anyway, but she didn’t want to expose her new friends and random other women to her homemade goods. 

“Speak of the devil.” Alegra held onto the ball that rolled to her, her eyes shifting to the door that was opening. Two Predators walked in, silencing the women who were screaming. Figures they would scream for them to let them out and then cower once they were in the vicinity; made no sense. 

One of the Predators was the same as before, the one who had brought Eris and the girl after her into the corral. She recognized him by the light golds and browns of his skin, a pattern that was unique and unlike something she had ever seen before. The only thing she could even think to compare the markings to was a snake. There were so many morphs of snakes and by seeing the second Predator, she knew there were different skin types and morphs to these creatures, too. 

The second Predator’s skin was more of a rust color with golden highlights in the mix of reds and browns. A bit shorter than the first one, he still towered over the women in front of them. Dark brown tresses connected to this one’s head, unlike the solid black from the other. When he turned to face her, Eris noticed a prominent scar that was in the middle of its forehead. The scar looked like an upside down crescent moon with a little triangle in between in. She had no idea what it meant, but she wondered why he had a scar and the first one did not.

She watched while they opened the first cell, the girls instinctively standing up, shivering and shaking as they walked passed the huge creatures, their pace quickening to get by them faster. One of the girls stayed on the ground, Eris guessing that this was her first go-around too, but since her cellmates didn’t talk she had no idea what she was going to. Clicking noises and grumbles were exchanged between the two males before one of them went in and grabbed the girl, bringing her to her feet while she begged for them to stop, forcing her to leave the cell and out of the room. 

“Tough crowd.” Cara made her way to the side where Alegra was, getting a better view on what was happening. When the last Predator left the room, the ball stayed in Alegra’s hands. It was a good thing the game had froze for a moment since Eris really wanted to see how everyone reacted to the Predator’s opening their cells. 

“I’m just glad the screaming stopped.” Eris spoke honestly with a monotone voice. Again, she knew that what they were going through was rough, but it was a very unnecessary thing to do in a time like this and helped no one. 

When Eris was working, she found herself in her own thoughts during the day, making up scenarios that would never happen and see them through. One of her favorite things was to see what she thought each coworker of hers would do in a zombie apocalypse. Some of them she would want on her team, but others were people she knew wouldn’t do well. 

The groups she split her coworkers in were simple: The Fighters were people she knew would be able to fight if their clan was taken over by another clan or if zombies had managed to break in. The Innovative were the ones who would be able to use skill and crafty thinking in order to promote the clan and be able to help make a shelter or have ideas on how to have a successful zombie apocalypse. The Brave were the ones she knew would be able to go outside and scavenge for things, keeping their clan alive by supplying food and being able to fight off zombies if they were getting too close to their home. The Useless were the people who were only in the group because someone else wanted them there, a best friend or a family member that really only used supplies without contributing to anything in the clan. The Traitors were people who she would never let join her clan since she knew they would try to usurp the leader and make it their own or somehow get their clan killed off. And last but not least The People-Who-Will-Panic-And-Get-You-Killed-Within-A-Matter-Of-Minutes-Due-To-Their-Lack-Of-Self-Control-And-Ability-To-Think-Under-Any-Amount-Of-Pressure. That one was pretty self-explanatory.

The women in the cages screaming belonged to the last group. Not being able to handle pressure and letting their emotions take over instead of trying to think everything out rationally. 

When the first group of women came back in, the three women stared at them through the bars. They walked back in like ghosts. “What the hell happened to them?” Eris noticed their hair was missing, wondering what kind of bathroom break that was; never in her life did she go to the bathroom and come back to no hair. 

“I don’t know,” the tone in Alegra’s voice was low as the last of the girls made it in the cell before the Predators opened another. Everyone in the room had seen the first group come back different, a panic set in as the second group was a lot more hesitant to leave their cells as the first. “But it looks like that’s going to happen to all of us.” 

Her heart began to beat faster as each group came back the same as the first: Bald and in different garments. She wasn’t afraid of being bald, couldn’t care less, but what the hell was going on to where they were getting modified? 

It wasn’t long until theirs was the cell that was being opened. As the girls in the cell before theirs returned in their prison, the three girls stood up and awaited their fate. When the Predators made their way over, they exchanged looks to each other before looking at the women. They had acted differently than the women before them, intriguing them. When they opened the door, each woman walked out one after the other, Eris in front since she was closest to the door.

Walking towards where all of the others girls walked, Eris wasn’t sure where to go when she would exit. Ghost faces staring through her as she made her way out of the room. When she and the other girls were fully out of the cell room, she stopped and waited for instruction, looking at Alegra and Cara to help lead her to where they were going since they had walked this path before. When the two girls stopped next to her, she knew they had to wait for the Predators. 

“You don’t know which way?” She spoke to both of the girls in a whisper as the Predators closed the door to the prison. Shaking their heads, Eris knew this was something they had not experienced. Sure they had to know where to go, but in their previous excursions through the ship they came back with hair and this time they knew they were going somewhere completely different where their hair would be gone. 

The Predator with the crescent moon scar on his forehead took the lead while the other non-marked Predator trailed behind them to make sure nothing happened. Eris wasn’t too sure why since the ship was a fucking circle that would make gathering them easy if one of them decided to trail off. 

Clicks and foreign words filled her ears while they talked to each other through the metal ship, hearing their sounds echo behind them. She recognized when they said ‘oomans’, knowing they were talking about her and the other two. It sounded enough like ‘human’ that she at least figured it was the same but knowing this race it could mean a completely different thing. She liked feeling like she knew at least something about them. 

The walls looked different than a few hours ago when she had first set foot in the ship. Her senses were heightened but this time with more focus than before. She was trying to get out before and now she was able to study and think about her next move, unphased by her once manic state. 

The scarred Predator stopped at a wall, one that Eris wouldn’t even begin to give a second look at, pressing a camouflage panel. She wondered how many rooms were on this ship since she clearly thought it was a control room, circle hallway, and the prison room. With how hidden these doors were, there could be countless rooms. She cleared her throat at the thought, looking behind at the girls behind her. They shared a worried look and nod as the door opened. Facing forward once more, they followed in after the first Predator, the second one making sure there was no room for their controlled escape.

Eris’s eyes shut immediately as the bright, luminescent lights sprung to life in front of her. The hallway was dimly lit with a red light, making her once big pupils from the darkness shrink, closing her eyes before slowly opening them with each rapid blink at the light. When her sight was adjusted, her mouth gaped open. 

The wall directly in front of her was all glass, exposing Outer Space right in front of her. The dark void with beacons of yellow glowing in the great distance, nothing else in sight. Her stomach sank. She knew that they were on a ship and she knew that she was in Space, but she hadn’t seen it. Her subconscious was convincing her that she was still on Earth in some weird serial killer’s basement with a bunch of other women, but still on her homeland. Now she was able to see the caliber of the situation she was in. She was in fucking Outer Space. 

In the middle of the obnoxiously bright room was a metal table with straps attached to the sides and a triangular laser looking contraption above it. Her stomach sank even further when she knew she would clearly be laying on that table in her too near of future. Metal counters and cabinets lined the far wall to the left of where she walked in, a bench on the right. She didn’t know what was about to take place, but she wasn’t ready for it. 

Motioning for the girls to take a seat on the bench, the Predator that trailed in behind shut the door and returned to his kith and kin. With their backs turned towards them, the girls looked at each other while sitting. 

“What do you think is going to happen?” Alegra kept her eyes on the Predators in front of her, not risking being caught off guard by whatever was about to happen. 

“I don’t know, but I’m scared.” Cara’s eyes were on the table with the laser looking structure above it. 

The Predators turned around before Eris could chime in, walking over to Cara before the non-scarred one grabed her arm and pulled her up off of the bench. Her eyes grew wide as panic began to hit her hard. It was one thing to be in a cage separated from them and another to be face to face with one as they manhandled you. 

Without thinking, Eris immediately stood up and grabbed the Predator’s wrist with one hand and Cara’s arm with the other. “Take me first,” She gently tugged at the Predator’s hand, knowing that any sort of strength she had would be nowhere near that of theirs. She was hoping the gentle pressure would communicate that she wasn’t trying to stop what was happening to them, but volunteer to be the one to go first. “I’ll go. Let me go first.” Her voice was soft as she connected eyes with Cara before turning them to meet the amber gaze of the Predator. Her face was calm as she tensed her brows a tad, one raising higher than the other. “Please.”

Eris felt the hand on Cara release, bringing it up to meet her shoulder. With a nudge, he used his hand to guide her towards the table. Her heart was racing as she looked at the contraption in front of her. Turning her head up slightly to look at the creature, she didn’t know what to do from here. Hell, she didn’t know what she was doing period. Would she have stepped in had she not known that they were going to survive whatever happened and be returned to their cells?

The non-scarred Predator moved back towards the other women to keep them in line as the crescent Predator stepped forward. His yellow eyes stared deeply at her. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but his deep gaze suggested that he was studying her as his head cocked back at her recent chain of events. 

Moving closer to her, she felt him begin to walk around her, touching her shoulder with one of his claws sent goosebumps throughout her body. As he trailed from one shoulder, behind her neck, and to the other blade, her eyes stayed still. “What is he doing?” Eris thought to herself as he continued his nail-dragging work around her throat and back to where he had begun. 

His hot gaze left her before returning to his kind next to the other women. More unknown words were exchanged before he brought his eyes back to her, catching her staring back at him. Bringing his hand to the ball of her shoulder, Eris flinched as he bunched up the material of her clothes in his fist and tug gently. 

Looking down at the bunched clothing and back at him, he tugged once more. Taking in a deep breath, Eris knew exactly what he wanted from her. She had to undress. Shooting a frightened look at the girls before looking back at him, she gave him a nod with her head before taking her sights to the metallic floor. 

Bringing her hands to the hem of her shirt, she grabbed at the opposite end that each arm belonged to, making her arms cross as she bunched the material. Lifting up to expose her stomach, she removed the shirt in one fare swoop. When the shirt hit the ground, she continued her actions before her anxiety stopped her. Bringing one leg up after the other, she began to remove her shoes and socks, placing them inside of the shoes before bending down and setting them next to each on the cold floor. Letting her feet adjust to the cold metal, she straightened up, bringing her hands up and placing them on her pants. Unbuttoning them, she slid the zipper down before easing them down her thighs, passed her knees, below her shins, and to her ankles. Lifting one foot up and out at a time, she kicked them aside when her last foot left the denim. 

She stood there just about naked before realizing what she was doing. She felt the panic want to take over her, lingering in the back of her head and in her throat. Pushing it back down, she let out a shaky breath before gingerly sliding down each one of her bra straps off of her shoulders, reaching back to unclasp it. One it hit the floor, she let her thumbs loop in the material of her underwear right at each hip. Stopping for a moment, she closed her eyes. She didn’t want to do it but gritting her teeth and nodding her head to herself, she slid them down. Taking one foot out at a time like she did to her pants, she kicked her underwear to the side. Completely naked. 

Looking back at the Predator, she quickly removed her gaze from him and to the table in front of her. She knew without him telling her that she had to lay on it. Climbing up, she maneuvered her legs around on the chilled table before leaning back against it. It was like sitting in a lawn chair, half raised up at the back, sloping down before meeting a straightaway for her butt and legs to rest perfectly on. She stared straight ahead into Space instead of looking over at the women. They were all scared, but she wanted to make this as easy on them as she could. She had only known them for a couple of hours, but she already cared for them deeply. If her cooperating and showing them that nothing bad was going to happen would ease their minds, then she would do it; though she didn’t know that nothing bad was going to happen. 

“M-di” the unscarred Predator spoke as the crescent scarred one reached for the straps. Eris watched in the periphery of her vision as the scarred one turned his head, nodding, and turned his attention back to her. If those creatures smiled, the way that he was looking at her was definitely a smile. Putting the straps down, he walked to her feet to look at her for a moment before walking to the opposite side. Pressing some buttons, another flinch escaped her body as the table began to fall flat, leaving her laying down. 

A few more buttons pressed before the laser contraption began to move, heading towards her feet. With mechanical clicks and rattles, it stopped once it was completely over her toes, a couple inches under her feet. 

The luminescent lights faded down, leaving the room almost black as the contraption began making sounds again. Eris lifted her head to see what it was doing when she saw a neon green light illuminate from the lasers point. Her toes curled as the laser began to draw itself towards her toes. Once the light hit, Eris could feel a slight tingle as the laser traced over her toes and moved its way up her body. She didn’t know what was going on as it made its way up her shins, slowly to her thighs, and over her private regions. Setting her head back down, she closed her eyes as she felt the tingle of the laser over her skin. 

A couple breaths later, she opened her eyes once more to see the laser right above her face. Dragging across before she stared straight into it, she was surprised when her eyes didn’t burn from the laser gliding over them. The tingles continued as she felt it on the last part of her scalp. Once the laser was complete, it drifted back to her feet. Letting the saliva in her mouth that accumulated from her anxiety, she let her eyes close, thinking it was all over.

She was wrong.

The machine spun up again, spitting out a blue light this time instead of the green one from before. Lifting her body up again, she let out a groan of pain when it hit her toes. She didn’t know what was going on. Everything in her body was telling her to run but she stayed put. “You’re going to live. If all of the other girls did this then you can, too.” Eris began to pep talk herself up in her head as the painful blue laser continued to slowly make its way up her body, slower than the green one.

As it continued on its path up her body, Eris wanted to get up and run. Turning her head to look at the girls on the bench, she saw the terror in their eyes at what was happening to her through the darkness between them. She wanted to get up, wanted to get off the table and stop what was happening, but a lingering thought in her head was that there was a giant creature right next to her, ready to pounce if she moved without him wanting her to, strapping her to the table where she was sure to panic. Being on the table with no straps gave her the illusion that she could leave any time and that she was testing her mental strength whereas being strapped meant she had no pseudo choice in the matter.

The agonizing pain trailed up her body until it finally reached her face. She kept her eyes open until it came to her nose, amazed that she had made it this far with little movement against the pain. When she was about to close her eyes, she noticed that the machine had stopped. 

Gazing up at the point of the laser, she had no idea why it had stopped. Looking over towards the crescent Predator next to her, she noticed that he was completely unconcerned with it stopping. As she stared at him, she noticed a purple glow fill the room. Turning her sights back on the laser, she watched as it picked up right where it left off at her nose, trailing its way up again. Closing her eyes, she was glad she did so since the pain was the exact same as the blue light before it. When the pain left the top of her scalp, she was worried for another laser when the machine went back down to her feet once more. 

Eris jerked her head to the side when she felt the Predator grab her arm, noticing its arm across her chest. “Turn over.” She shook her head when she thought she had understood his foreign language. Staring at him, he gripped her tightly before repeating himself, “Turn over.” His guttural voice sterner than before. Letting the palms of her hands flatten against the metal table, she brought herself up and turned her body over, the cold soothing her once hot body. It was then she noticed that the table wasn’t as smooth as it was before, but instead grainy. Letting her eyes focus in the dark, she couldn’t tell what was causing the textures in the table. 

When she placed her cheek on the table, she was caught off guard when the Predator had moved it, resting her nose and forehead on the table instead. Uncomfortable as it was, she wasn’t about to protest. The laser turned back on, repeating the same process. The green left tingles on her body while the blue and purple lights left a trail of pain. 

When the lights turned back on, Eris’s forehead was still in contact with the table, not knowing if she was able to pick it back up. When she felt another hand on her shoulder, she knew she was able to get up. Sitting up on the table Eris began to feel a breeze on her head, feeling the uncomfortable sensation from when you have a stray hair on your body, but this time it was followed by more and more. She had to let her eyes adjust to the light once more before she could see what was happening and she didn’t like what she saw when everything was clear. 

Looking down at her body, Eris brought her hands up as she found herself picking up her long black hair off of her body. Her lip pursed upwards as she started to brush it off of her bare skin. She knew she was going to come out of this with no hair, but the experience was strange. When all of the hair was off of her body, she brought her hands up to feel her head; completely bald. She looked over at the girls in front of her, dumbfounded by what had just happened. 

Setting her hands back on the table, she felt the grainy textures again. Looking down at where her hands were, it was like she had shed her skin. The whole table was covered in skin follicles. Looking down closer, she noticed fine hairs that accompanied the skin. Bringing her hands to her legs, she felt smooth skin. Looking back at the table, she frowned at how disgusting it all looked. 

“What did you do?” Eris asked, knowing that the crescent scarred Predator understood and spoke her language. 

“Stripped of parasites.” His deep voice spoke the foreign words. Staring at the ooman, he couldn’t believe the temperament of this one. In his many times of doing this process, he always had to strap the ooman women down. They would scream and cry against their surroundings, but this one held her own. Tracker, the Predator in the room with him, was right to test this female. When he had gone to strap her, Tracker had told him not to. He would have normally put his subordinate in his place for ordering him around since he was his superior, but he was also curious to see what this female could do and how she would react. He did not regret the decision. 

“Why?” She continued.

“Oomans together cause sickness. Don’t want sick oomans.” Tichinde remembered when he had first started gathering up ooman females to sell across the galaxies. They were all healthy in their cells but after a few days of being together, he noticed them all starting to get sick. It was rare for his kind to accumulate any sort of sickness, but if the oomans contracted any sort of foreign dust into their bodies, it seemed they all plagued each other.

His first batch of oomans almost ended in them all dying. They kept getting sicker and sicker until finally one of them kicked the bucket. Tichinde and his clan wasn’t sure how to treat ooman ailments, but after separating them, cleansing them and their rooms, letting them heal, and then putting them all back together, it seemed to start a new tradition for them. 

Whenever they would go to Earth, they would spend a couple days gathering females from across different lands until they were satisfied with their lot. When they were to head back, they would take each ooman in and shed them of the Earth bacteria on their body, also coating them with another laser treatment that would aid against the humans who had yet to be cleansed. In the process, the second coating acted as an agent that permanently removed their hair.

When they would take the oomans in the past, they would have to put them in a completely different room, all of them being huddled together while their cell chambers were cleansed of the bacteria they had brought in. Once the room was cleaned, they would be brought back to be kept in their original prisons. 

It took decades to perfect the coatings. The Green coating took as much of their Epidermis off as it could before getting too close to the Dermis. Once stripped, the Blue coating went over the sensitive remaining Epidermis. The lasers had the same amount of pressure, but since their first layer of ooman armor had been taken off, it was far more sensitive than before. Coating the skin with good bacteria not found on Earth, it permanently protected against any ailment from that planet. 

“Why the hair?” She was going to ask until he stopped her from doing so. She needed answers and he was giving them. 

“Don’t like hair from here,” Tichinde touched her nose with a black talon before pointing it down to her feet, “To here.” 

Ooman body hair was a nuisance. Before this became his method on obtaining ooman females and finding that they got sick from each other and needed to find a way to prevent it, he would hear from the oomans all the time that they needed to ‘shave’ the hair from everywhere except from above their nose and to their scalp. It was a request that annoyed him, so if the Blue coating made them lose their hair, then that was one less thing he had to hear the women complain about when they became comfortable with their kind. 

“You only like hair if it is on a human’s head?” a brow raised at the creature. She couldn’t figure them out. It made no sense. “And if you only like it on the head, why is mine gone?”

“From here up will grow back,” He brought his talon back to the bridge of her nose and pointed up to her scalp. “The other hair will not.”

It also wasn’t that he and his kind liked the hair on their head, but the complaints coming in that they wanted the hair on their head to grow back was enormous. The ones who were permanently bald seemed to grow saddened by the fact, plummeting their quality of life. He didn’t know why oomans were so particular on their hair, but the way he saw it, he was making them happy while taking them from their planet and selling them to other clans like his. He was also doing the other clans a favor. So, with the Purple coating, it did the same treatment as the Blue but the effect on the hair follicles were not damaged and would grow back.

A brow raised as Eris was still confused as to why that was necessary. Hey, she never had to shave for the rest of her life if what he was saying was true. The only thing she’d have to worry about now would be the unibrow she would get. 

“Why take us in the first place?” A shaky voice spoke as she moved topics to the one she really wanted to know. Just being in the presence of these creatures set her heart to beat faster. At the rate her heart was going, she would be 80 and almost dead in no time. 

“Ki’cte.” Tichinde was done speaking with her. She was a brave ooman, one that would fetch him a good price, and the example she was setting for the two other oomans on the bench would only benefit him more. She was different, unique. When he looked into her eyes he saw fear like the others, but what he saw more was curiosity. 

Grabbing her off of the table, he led her back to the bench where the others were. “Who is next?” The language was foreign to his mouth, but it was something he had grown accustomed to since he had been in the line of ooman capturing for centuries.

When he first began, he found it frustrating that he didn’t know what they were saying. He had no idea why they cried and what they screamed. It wouldn’t matter if he never found out since he would do it anyway, but a way to communicate was key to him and his Killers Clan. It would help them understand why their prisoners were upset, fully satisfied by the facts. Before knowing their language, they knew that they were afraid, but knowing why they feared them was titillating. It filled a void inside of him and satisfied his needs to threaten and intimidate along with everyone in his clan. 

Tichinde formed the clan centuries ago when he was labeled a Bad Blood, which is what the scar on his head represented. When he had taken over a wounded clan leaders position, that immediately sealed his fate as a traitor, never being able to come back from that position with his race.   
The Yautja kind had a code they lived by, and if they were to defer from that code, they would be known as a Bad Blood. Bad Bloods were known as the scum of the Yautja race, giving any other Yautja permission to kill them on sight. Non-deserving of the blood within their veins, the Bad Bloods were known to either fly solo and kill whatever they felt they could without caring for the Hunt or form Bad Blooded clans doing illegal things. In this case, Tichinde found himself a Black Market of selling ooman females to other Bad Bloods. He had the stealthiest crew and way to harvest them without the other Yautja finding out and trying to stop them. There had been close calls, but he always managed to escape.

“I’ll go.” Alegra spoke up, passing the ball with suave motion to Cara as she stood and walked over to the table while Eris took a seat. Cara held onto the ball, trying to hide it from the other Predator standing next to her. 

When the room went dark again, the process went over and over as Alegra and Cara went through the same thing that Eris did; all without using the straps. When Cara had gone up to get lasered, she had passed the ball back to Eris. The ball was their only source of entertainment, and it seemed that all three of the girls were on the same page to keep the entertainment going. It kept them sane.

When all was done and the screams of pain had subsided, the girls watched as the non-scarred Predator went over to the metal cabinets across the room. They watched as he opened up the cabinet and picked out three bundles of tanned material. Bringing it over, he handed it to each of them. 

“Put it on.” Tichinde spoke after cleaning off the table once more before he’d have to do another batch of females. He cleaned the table after each human was cleansed of their parasites.

Figuring it out, Eris finally found the entrance of the material and pulled it up and over her head. When it draped to her mid-thigh, she scanned it over. She wasn’t sure what the tan material was, but it was comfortable and surprisingly cool in the ships heat. The Tunic-like dress she was in covered all of the necessary parts, cutting off at the shoulder leaving her no sleeves; as if she needed it in this heat. Looking at the other girls, they were all wearing the same exact thing. They both pulled it off well, but with how it felt, Eris felt like a potato in it. She wondered if she, too, looked alright in it. 

The Tunic was the most comfortable thing she had worn since she had become homeless. It also smelled better. It was terrible to think that she was doing better on an alien ship than she was on Earth. Already she didn’t have to shave anymore and had a brand-new dress. Sadly, alien ship One, Earth Zero. 

When they had put everything back on, Tracker went to the door and opened it, this time he led them back to while Tichinde crept behind. Their feet made no sound in the metal halls as they trailed the curved hallway. The oomans feet on the other hand, were sticking to the metal and making a suction cup sound each time they raised and planted their feet. It was annoying, but a sound they were used to. A few moments later, Tracker opened a door, allowing the girls to enter first.

“We know this place.” Alegra looked over at Cara, then back to Eris. This was the room that they were used to being brought to, where they could get something quick to eat and drink and use the bathroom.

Looking around, Eris quickly found what resembles a door on Earth. It was weird seeing something like that in a place like this; wood amongst all of the metal. Opening it up, she was relieved when she saw a toilet and sink. “Be right back!” She slammed the door shut and allowed her body to relieve itself. It was a mind fuck being on an alien spaceship but an Earth bathroom. With the door shut, it looked like she was in any restaurant bathroom. A sigh of relief left her mouth as she cleaned up, washed her hands, and headed out to get something to eat and drink. She was going to stay hydrated, but since she didn’t know when she would get the chance to use the bathroom again, she would only drink enough to keep her alive. 

The liquids on the table were foreign, lots of strange colored drinks with different texture. Looking around until she saw the familiar clear liquid, Eris let it hit her lips, taking only a few sips of the water. Her throat begged her to take more, but she knew she would have to go sooner rather than later if she did and since she didn’t know the schedule yet, she didn’t want to chance it. 

The food was interesting too, but instead of being adventurous, she ate the same thing that she saw Cara and Alegra eat. It was a brown, crispy looking thing, but when she brought it to her mouth she noticed that it resembled a cracker. Taking a few bites of that, she was satisfied with the little she had eaten.   
After the other girls took turns in the bathroom, Eris looked over at the two Predators waiting at the door. It felt like she was being babysat, but instead of a teenaged girl looking after her, she had two tall motherfuckers who were built like giant machines. Just looking at them made her heart race and anxiety meet her throat. Looking away, she waited for the other two to be done, and knowing the two who looked impatient at the door, she knew it wouldn’t be long. 

When all was done, they made their way back out into the hallway. It seemed that every room that they walked into was nicely lit, making Eris wonder why the hallway lighting and prison room lighting were so poor. Were the Predators trying to prove a point that being outside of the prison was more appealing and that they should earn rights to being out of the room? It did make sense to her since knowing she was about to be back into the dark room left her uneasy. She wanted to stay in the light and not be surrounded by the dark, that was one of the things she loved about summers in Alaska; the sun never went down. The winter, on the other hand, was dark, dreary, and cold. But this wasn’t Alaska anymore, this was a dark, alien infested spaceship.

Making it back to the prison room, the non-scarred Predator opened the door. The girls followed in until they made it back to their cell, walking in and letting the Predators close the bars behind him. Turning around to see the cell they were taking next, it was the screamers from before. When the doors opened, the screams shot through the air once more. Both Predators having to go in and get each girl, holding them in each of their hands. Kicking and screaming, they both lifted them by their necks off of the floor, their feet dangling in the air. A relieving silence when the door out of the room closed. 

Eris scanned the room again. On the half of room she was in, all of the cells of girls had gone through the process and were sitting silently in their prisons. The other side of the room, where the Predators started with the screaming girls, had yet to experience what had happened. She debated telling them all that it would be okay and to just cooperate, but she honestly didn’t have the energy to. All of the energy of helping out was sucked out of her when she volunteered to do the laser treatment first. It was scary and something she never thought she would do in her life. It was painful, but obviously not life threatening. 

“Thank you,” Cara’s quiet voice spoke up, forcing Eris to look her way. Her brown eyes were sad, calm. Her face was emotionless, not stoic. “Pike, you really helped me.” A couple tears tell from her eyes straight to the apples of her cheeks, skipping the skin in between. “I was so scared, I don’t know if I would have made it through that if you didn’t go first.”

“You going first helped me, too.” Alegra spoke up, less tearful. 

“It was nothing,” Eris unclenched her fist that the rubber ball was in. “I knew we’d be fine since all of the other girls came back here alright. Scarred beyond belief, but they all came back alive.” She was honest. It might have been a different situation had she seen that the other women didn’t make it back, even just one of them.

“No, what you did was literally amazing.” A few more docile tears fell from her eyes.

“Don’t mention it.” Eris had been emotionally turned off for so long that it was weird feeling it climb up her throat once more. “But hey, thank you guys for saving this.” She held up the rubber ball in her hand, smile on her face to try to change the mood in the quiet room, no sounds coming from anywhere except their cells. 

“That’s a sanity ball, we need it!” Alegra laughed, “I was so worried they would find out that I was holding it and make me give it to them.” 

“It’s this cell’s mascot.” Cara let out a joke, her brown eyes clearing up from the tears. 

“Then we need to keep it safe.” Eris sat back in her position before she was taken, this time her legs weren’t spread as wide. She wasn’t wearing underwear anymore and definitely didn’t want to expose her goods to her cellmates. When the other girls followed suit, they began to pass the small ball to each other again. “We need to be careful, we don’t need them coming in and taking it away.”

“They have their hands full right now with the ladies they just took.” Alegra smirked, passing the ball to Cara, watching it closely. 

“That’s true, we got a few minutes.” Cara giggled, her crying a thing of the past. 

“Let’s make this last then.” Eris could see the other girls staring at them in her periphery. She didn’t blame them, it was probably weird seeing people having the slightest amount of fun while being in here. She had to admit, if she didn’t have this group of ladies, she probably wouldn’t be laughing right now, just sitting quietly by herself. Hell, the same group of ladies could be here but in different cells and no one would be talking. It only furthered her suspicion that they were all placed in the same cell by category. Even the ones who were screaming were all together, and the calm crying ones, the many cells there were of those, were all together. Their sorting process was thought out, and she knew she would figure it out soon, but right now she wanted to just be in the moment that they were having. She knew that soon she would be coming back to these memories, wishing that they were the present.


	3. Chapter 3

Days had passed since Eris had been taken from Earth by the Predators. In regards to the interactions she had with them, each day played out the same, completely identical to the last. Each cell seemed to have their own routine when it came to interactions with the Predators. Some cells would remain quiet while they came in, always two of them who seemed to be different than the ones from before, obeying whatever command they would throw out in their language. They’d get to go eat a little bit, use the bathroom, and come back. At least, that’s what she knew her cell was doing so she only figured that it was what every other cell was doing, too. Even through attempts to talk to the other cells, they never responded back to her.

Other cells would try to fight back, specifically the used-to-be screaming cell which had seemed to die down, only occasionally screaming in the night. When the Predators came to open their cell, they would scatter, the four of them, and try to make it difficult. They once tried to run passed the creatures and leave the room which surprisingly worked. One made their escape while everyone else all looked on. Some of the other girls cheered, which was the first time Eris had heard some of them speak, but she knew well enough to know that the whole ship was a circle and they would only be caught within a matter of moments. The Predators knew that, too, not bothering to chase her. Instead, they waited in the doorway until they heard her footsteps and then surprise stepped right in front of her, grabbing her and taking her with her cellmates to do their daily activities. Eris knew the exact feeling of that girl: Defeat. Whether punishment was ensued, she didn’t know, but whatever happened it didn’t stop the girls from continuing to strategize. They talked amongst each other, but never spoke to her cell.

The last group of cells were frozen still when the Predators would come in. They were typically all quiet, but once the creatures walked into the room, they would make their way to the farthest point of the opening of their cell and drop down, looping an arm through the bar. The Predators would have to physically come in, easily take their grip on the bars off, and carry them out. They seemed determined to take care of the girls regardless of if they wanted to go or not, never actually hurting them. Those cells always took the longest to come back.

It didn’t take them long per cell, averaging around fifteen minutes each. Eris, Cara, and Alegra timed it a couple times by counting to sixty multiple times until they could add it together to see how long they were gone for, which did roughly come to fifteen-twenty minutes depending on the group; the used-to-be screaming group took less time than the crying group which surprised them. No other group seemed to care enough to see what was going on and find out the routine, but these three did. Instead of using tricks to try to get passed them, they just wanted to find out the routine so they could be prepared in what was happening, ready for it all.

Using their counting tactic to also see how often the Predators actually visited them, they concluded it was averaging around every two and a half hours. It was a long time of counting, but they used an entire day just to see. While two of the girls would sit down and talk to each other, the other would count for ten minutes before trading off to let another one count. It was nice knowing the schedule. They noticed that while everyone was sleeping that they came in a lot less, doubling the time before coming in to visit them. It sucked for Eris, though, since she had been up and needing to use the restroom while everyone else was sleeping, having to wait that extra time before she could go. In those cases, it was one of the many reasons she was glad she had the girls in her cell that she did. Any other cell it seemed they would procrastinate going which would cause her to have to wait longer, but her cellmates just owned up to it and went.

When they finally were able to go with the beasts, Eris would find herself trying to talk to them to get any sort of information. No luck. The only one to have ever talked to her was the one who had taken off all of her hair and first layer of skin; she hadn’t seen him in days. She didn’t know if the others didn’t speak or understand her language. Maybe they were ordered not to talk to her? She wasn’t sure.

What Eris was sure of though, was that if it weren’t for the girls she had in her cell with her, she knew that this whole ‘being taken from Earth’ thing would be just as mundane as the encounters they had with the Predators. If not this cell, she’d be in a cell full of people who wanted nothing to do with talking or staying calm, which in turn would cause her to panic. She didn’t like to be or feel alone, especially in a room full of people. Eris was an emotional copycat, taking whatever emotion the room was portraying and duplicating it. But luckily, she was with these girls.

They had a lot of conversations, some serious and some funny. She learned that Alegra was twenty-four years old from Texas, which she figured from her strong southern accent. She was a clerk at a Target, going to college full time to become a physical therapist. Her fears included that of: owls, lampreys, trypophobia, and not being successful in life. Her likes were: Tropical Skittles, going to the movies by herself, jogging outside in the heat, and hanging out with her family for Friday Night Game Night.

Cara was a more reserved individual from Washington, the youngest in their cell being nineteen years old. She spoke to them just fine, but Eris learned that she was someone who was very much introverted on Earth. She had no real friends, keeping them at a distance, but since being here she decided to open up, knowing that her anxiety factor would be a lot worse if she didn’t. Though being an introvert, she was very stubborn and wouldn’t do things she didn’t want to do. Her fears were: Being in public, crowded places, snakes, and being skinned alive. A very specific trait to tell her and Alegra. Her likes included: playing video games, surfing the web, playing Pokemon Go at night, and red velvet cake.

Eris never did give them her real name, keeping that aspect of her life a secret for now, even though she fully trusted these women. She was worried that once she told them her name, that the brave Pike would no longer exist, the mask being off and the emotional copycat Eris would emerge, knowing fully that she needed Pike to survive this.

She told them about her parents passing away, no siblings, moving to Alaska, and even the whole situation that she had with Nolan. She also let them know that she was homeless before being taken from here, which resulted in the girls joking around with “So that explains what that smell was!” All of them taking a laugh at it, Eris taking no personal offense to it. It was funny of her to think that she felt more loved in this cell then she had with her ex, Nolan.

Even free to roam around in the final months with him, she felt caged. A hostage to his emotions and whatever he wanted to beat her into submission that day. What once was a fiery, lively spirit who knew exactly what she wanted in her life, he had taken that and started to make her question everything. In conversation she would give an answer and he would knock her down a few pegs to tell her that she was wrong when she knew she wasn’t, causing her to even question herself. Mentally abusive and physically abusive in the end, being homeless, hell being here was way better than being with him. She might have been stagnant here in this cell, but she had people willing to help her in it. They worked together and planned out what they wanted to do, agreeing on everything. A partnership with these girls that she hadn’t felt from her ex in a very long time.

The relationship with Nolan was all a magical happening, but in the end, it was only a façade to get her which almost destroyed her. It took her a few months of being homeless to finally take back what she had unknowingly allowed him to take from her; herself. She was figuring herself out again on her own and each piece she put back together, it was worth the weeks of finding it, biting down to the bone to obtain it. All of the emotional back and forth, it was worth it because she felt the light that had dimmed down, tiny embers left that even he would never be able to put out. She was becoming more sure of herself again. Just like anyone who experiences any sort of trauma, she went through a lot of anxiety that she never had before, but week by week it was going away. Before she was taken from Earth, she was starting to feel more like herself, more like Eris than she had felt in a very long time. Whether it was her persona of ‘Pike’ or because it was actually her, it was liberating. She was a strong woman and she knew that in the end she would become herself again. Never the same as she was before, but even more knowledgeable and experienced, the anxiety only meant that she was no longer naïve to the world. And now she was here.

Looking around, she lifted herself off of the floor and sat against the cool bars, not being able to sleep. She always thought it was weird how the metal could stay cool even when the place was so hot. One of the benefits of being bald in here was the fact that she wasn’t sweating from her neck up. Before being cut off, her hair was a tattered, mangled mess that went to her mid-tit. Before getting on the surgical looking table, her hair barely covered the privates of her breasts. Now she was bald. It wasn’t so bad, she could finally lay down and not have to flip her hair behind her first to not roll around on it and pull it out of her scalp.

The room was quiet, silent chests heaving up and down throughout the room. The red light made everything seem so intense but being here for a couple of days it was starting to become normal. Since she and her friends had fallen asleep, she didn’t know how long it would be before a Predator would come in and see if any of the groups were awake. Closing her eyes once more, head resting between the space of the two bars, she let a calm breath escape her mouth.

Slight noise started to come from behind her, the screaming cell. It sounded like one of them was getting up to move across the room to lay down or just pace back and forth, something that even Eris did from time to time if the girls were asleep and she was the only one awake. If she had a Fitbit, she’d be rocking in those daily steps.

When the noise continued, not sounding like pacing anymore, Eris opened her eyes. Without looking behind her, she tried to focus on what she was hearing. She couldn’t tell what it was until she heard a slight gurgle sound. Turning behind her, she looked at the cell to see one of the girls strangling the other one.

“Hey, Hey! Stop!” Eris flipped over on her knees before standing up, each one of her hands gripping onto the bars, feeling her voice crack having not spoken that loud since she was taken days ago. “Stop her!” All the girls in the room woke from her screaming, looking over at the horrific sight before them. “Help her!” Eris continued to scream as she met the eyes of the other girls in the same cell as the girl being choked out.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Get her off of her!” Alegra screamed, her and Cara joining Eris on the bars, watching the girl’s face start to lose color.

“What the fuck are you doing? Don’t just stand there, do something!” Cara pitched in as the three girls white knuckled the bars, looking like dogs in a cage barking at a stranger. Their eyes were wide and furious while their feet pumped them slightly up and down as they tried to move the bars to help the dying girl.

Another cell started to join in, yelling at the other two girls for not helping their dying cellmate. Eris looked over at them, nowhere near the stance that her cell was in but she was glad that others were trying to help them in their cause to save this girls life. Bringing her eyes back to the homicidal girl, she noticed her eyes never breaking from the girl she was choking. Even in the dim light, she could see a manic expression on her face. She didn’t know what exactly caused her to break, but she definitely snapped.

“You don’t have to do this, stop it!” Eris continued to call out along with her friends, not understanding why killing this girl would help her in any way. Looking back down at the white-faced girl, she watched as her arms began to lower from the wrists of the woman choking her, life fading away. It would only be moments now until she would be gone.

A ‘woosh’ of the door broke the screams of the two cells of girls as Tichinde and Tracker walked into the room. When the women’s faces didn’t linger on them long, which was unusual, they brought their eyes to the commotion going on in the back. There, they noticed that the three girls who had given them the least amount of trouble during the Coating process were upright and facing the cell across from theirs. When their eyes followed where the oomans were facing, they saw what was causing all of the noise: The cell that had given them the most trouble this whole go-around had a girl assaulting another. “C’jit.”

Swiftly running to the cell’s bars, Tichinde quickly opened it before grabbing the girl and easily ripping her off of the other one, holding her tightly in his grasp. Tracker knelt down beside the girl who was struggling to breathe, coughs and deep inhales of air filling the room as everyone dropped quiet. The girl in Tichinde’s arms continued to struggle, screaming that she wanted to continue what she was doing.

Holding the struggling girl with both hands, Tichinde had never in his line of work seen this. It was normal for the girls to bond together, docile in the situation and if they were to harm anyone it would be themselves. But this, he had never seen. While the girl continued to struggle in his arms, he began to squeeze until her breathing quickened due to panic of not being able to breathe. In moments she was passed out in his arms. The Yautja that had come with him picked up the girl who had been badly wounded.

Walking out of the cell and closing it behind him, the two remaining girls’ ch’hkta made him uneasy. He didn’t understand how they could panic and pace around the cell but refused to help out a fellow ooman in need. Had he been in the position as them, there wouldn’t be a doubt in his mind to help out his fellow Yautja. Jehdin Jehdin was one thing, both parties were aware of the battle to take place, but this attack was clearly during ones’ sleep. An assassination. As far as he was concerned, if it weren’t for the girls across the cell where the betrayal took place, the girl Tracker was holding would be thei-de. Dead.

Though a Bad Blood, Tichinde didn’t abandon all of the Code he had grown up to know. It was etched in their DNA, only one Yautja in history was known to have abandoned it all. Tichinde didn’t want to abandon all of the codes, they were useful. It kept a certain structure even in his clan of Bad Bloods, there was still a hierarchy which helped him lead his clan. Without rules, there was chaos. Every Bad Blood had a code they lived by, if you had none then you were lost. The infamous Yautja to have abandoned it all was a poster child for that. Reckless to even himself. The girl in his arms was also a product of that, an u’darahje, abomination to her race. She had no rules, no code to help her through this situation so her mind was free to carry out anything that came to it.

* * *

 

“How bad does it look?” Tichinde asked once the door behind them shut completely, leaving the ooman women silent behind it.

Looking down at the girl, Tracker studied the marks on her neck before looking into her eyes. Fear that would have been there with him holding her was not. She was in a state of shock while she continued to gasp for air. “By the bruising on her neck, I’d say that the tarei’hasan you’re carrying broke it.” He brought his amber eyes to quickly shoot Tichinde a glance.

“Fixable?” The crescent scarred Yautja recognized the look, meeting his yellow eyes to him. It was custom to never keep eye contact for too long, showing signs of a challenge. Tichinde could stare all he wanted since he was the leader of this clan, it was his job to keep his subordinates in place. If he noticed them looking at him long enough, he could issue a challenge and see if they would take him up on it. So far, no one tried to challenge him or his authority.

“Sei’i.” Tracker knew they could fix the wounds that the tarei’hasan, insect, had created. Cowardly woman to have done such a thing to another. If Bad Bloods existed in the human culture, she would definitely be one of them, except she had no honor in her actions. No reasoning other than bad instinct lead her to this result. It furthered her in no way to kill this woman.

“Worth it?”

“H’ko, she’s not.”

That’s all Tichinde needed to hear. It was a good thing that the ooman Tracker was holding couldn’t understand the conversation they were having. They were going to put her out of her misery, she wasn’t worth saving. Had it been one of the three girls that showed promise they’d put in the effort to save her, but alas she wasn’t.

The trade Tichinde and his clan were in provided ooman women to other clans like his. The illegal trafficking of oomans was surprisingly a steady business, which is why they went out of their way to take care of the women they captured. They would make a trip to Earth, study the women who showed promise, capture them, process them, and then meet at a mutual giant ship that was the epicenter of all Bad Bloods alike. The price for the women depended on their personalities.

The oomans that they captured were only as promising as how they reacted in the cells. It was a gamble taking them before tracking them for a while, but with other Yautja hunting the area, they only had a little bit of time to take what they thought would fetch a good price. Once they had them, once they exposed themselves, those oomans were theirs. The ‘catch and release’ concept did not exist to them. The only reason they had caught the daring human that went through the Coating process was because she had stumbled across them killing an ooman male who had spotted them. Since she was female, they decided to take her, which was unexpectedly not regrettable. If only all mistakes were as captivating as her.

Once they were back on the mothership, they would ask a certain price for the women and any takers would battle it out. The winner would pay whatever price it was for that ooman and get to take her to do whatever they wanted. Currency wasn’t a deciding factor for the Yautja, but rather what they could offer. Normally, any sort of armor, weapons, metals, ship parts, rare foods, or even missions were requested in return for the oomans. Pretty much whatever the clan needed at the time or wanted as a luxury they would ask for in exchange for the oomans they had taken.  
D’lex was a popular, durable metal that they asked for the oomans they found to be promising, along with a Ki’its-pa and Ki’cti-pa made of the rare metal; long lasting weapons were a Yautja’s best friend. Promising oomans meant entertainment for some of the Bad Bloods who traveled solo, meaning they would pay that price to have them. The less promising oomans usually didn’t earn Tichinde more than an old T’gou U’linja, a net gun to help capture more oomans. Almost a waste. The girl in Tracker’s arm would fetch just that, so the loss wasn’t much.

Entering a surgical room, slightly different from the one they Coated humans in, Tichinde placed the ill-tempered girl on one of the tables, using the straps in case she woke up. Walking over to Tracker, he looked at the ooman who continued to fight for her life, breathing in what air she could. Under the luminescent light, he could see just how bad her neck was. Bruising from where the thumbs had been pressing against her hyoid, seeing where the bone had broken and the blood had been swelling up in her neck.

Heading over to one of the cabinets on the wall, Tichinde opened up one of the metal doors before grabbing a syringe filled with radiant yellow liquids. The substance would be injected into the woman’s neck, letting her feel pain free before drifting off to meet the Gods of her kind. She would be at peace.

With syringe in hand, Tichinde made his way over to the woman in Tracker’s hold. Gently grabbing her cheek and turning it towards his comrade’s body, she let out a muffled cry of pain. Taking the syringe, not letting the woman see it, he made contact with her skin. Her body jolted at the initial prick, but once the liquid started pouring into her body she calmed down. An instant numbness washed over her. Tichinde and Tracker watched her eyes until they closed. She was gone.

“Take her to the incinerator.” Tichinde took the needle out of her neck, watching Tracker leave the room with the lifeless body in hand. His sights then turned to the girl on the table.

Because of her, he now lost two oomans. He and his clan would get nothing. She had wasted their time. Looking down at her, he didn’t know whether she was worth the kill or if some Yautja would have any sort of use for her.

On one hand, she could be sold to a solo Bad Blood who really wanted a feisty challenge, an ooman that he couldn’t read and was completely unpredictable. Her mind blanking out and her sad, primal, lunatic instincts taking over her. She would be fun for a day, but still wouldn’t fetch a good price now that she had shown her true colors. Before doing this, he could have easily gotten a fairly decent trade from her, but now she wasn’t worth as much. Even if he didn’t tell the other Yautja what had happened, her manic state would say nothing but trouble.

On the other hand, he would get a little bit of satisfactory in killing her. She fucked him over and he was slightly offended by the action.

Her eyes opened.

Looking down at her, he saw the fear begin to flow into her eyes. His mandibles clicked together as he pondered what he wanted to do. He watched her face grow disgusted at his actions, only forcing him to cock his head to the side while continuing his eye contact. Through terror-filled eyes, she never broke her stare. “A Challenge.”

Now that she had unknowingly made it clear that she was challenging him, he pondered how he would do it. He could mortally wound her, use a syringe and let her go peacefully, tear her to pieces joint by joint, skin her, rip off her head, unstrap her and let her try to flail around while he easily captured and killed her. The options were honestly endless. No matter what, there was no honor in this pathetic kill. So instead of wasting his efforts, he went back to the cabinet, dropped off his first syringe to grab another syringe, this time one filled with a fuchsia liquid.  
Making no effort in hiding it from this ooman like he did the last, he let the syringe dance in front of her face. A lot of protests came from her as she struggled against the straps holding her down. Walking closer to her side, Tichinde grabbed her calf, injecting it in there instead of her neck. Starting at her leg would let the substance travel towards her entire body instead of letting her only feel a little bit of pain and then death if he injected it in at her neck.

Slowly pushing the liquid into her body, he watched her face as she began to scream out in pain. The fuchsia liquid was literally killing everything it came into contact with. Like cauterizing a wound, it burned her insides, stopping any sort of blood flow to the effected parts. Slowly making its way up her body, he watched as the effected skin began to turn black. Her body was on fire from the inside. When it had made it to her torso, her screams became even more audible as her organs began to catch fire, solidifying once the liquid passed through, doing its job. The screams of agony cut off when it hit her heart, her body finally ceased. She was dead. Watching the liquid continue to run through her body until it killed the entire host, he watched her once porcelain face blacken. “Ell-osde’pauk.” Tichinde brought the syringe to the sink before thoroughly cleaning it, along with the first one.

“Good choice.” Tracker spoke at the doorway, looking over at Tichinde cleaning the tools. “Bring this one to the incinerator too?” He started to unstrap the stiff, burned woman, picking her up. She was as stiff as a board, everything in her body had hardened. A worse effect than normal Rigor Mortis.

“Or shoot her off into Space, whichever you want to do.” Tichinde didn’t look at him, continuing his cleaning before placing them on the counter to dry off on top of a sponge textured cloth. He’d put them away later.

“Space it is.” Tracker and Tichinde shared a laugh. The stench she would make in the incinerator wasn’t worth it. She and her spirit could forever drift off into space, there was no honor in her. They were usually meticulous in not leaving any sort of trace of their existence anywhere, but once the liquid killed the host there was no tracking it. She looked burned. Why a human was in Outer Space could be for many reasons. There were a lot of intelligent species out there and Earth was a common hunting ground for a lot of them. Only if another Yautja came across her body would know what happened, and they were Bad Bloods so they really didn’t care.

When Tracker found his way back to Tichinde, they went back to the room where this all had happened. Before everything had gone down, they were only minutes away from gathering them up. They were getting close to the mothership, just one more break for the humans and then it’d be time to line them up and get their trade for them. Stepping inside, the room was quiet as all eyes shifted to them. Starting with the first cell, they repeated their usual process.

* * *

 

“They’re back.” Cara whispered amongst the quiet room, making her voice barely audible to the other girls in the cell.

“And the other girls aren’t.” Alegra shifted in the cell, getting as far away from them as she could until her back hit the bars.

“That didn’t take long.” Eris watched as the first cell was more on edge this time as they went with the Predators. The first cell hadn’t been this emotional since the beginning but with everything that had just taken place, she couldn’t blame them. Hell, even she was nervous about going with them.

“What do you think they did to them?” Cara brought her knees to her chest.

“Whatcha think they did to ‘em?” Alegra’s southern accent only really thickened when she was uncomfortable. “They killed’em.”

Bringing her hand to her throat, Eris felt the subtle, light scabs on her neck. When she was taken, she had a giant rip in her skin from one side of her jaw to the other. But instead of putting her down, the Predator easily injected something into her which stopped the bleeding and pain. Their technology was far more advanced than that of Humans, hell they even took off the first layer of her skin without killing her and got rid of all of her hair in one fair swoop. So, why get rid of the injured girl? She completely understood killing off the other one, if that is what they did, but why an innocent?

“It’s only a matter of time until they kill us, too.” The brown eyed girl let her chin rest upon her knees, no tears coming out. Learning about Cara, Eris knew that her anxiety was rising. Making her way over to her, she wrapped her arm around her.

“We haven’t done anything wrong,” Eris began rubbing her back, Alegra joining on the other side of Cara, “They haven’t hurt us so far, so I doubt they’ll start now. Something really bad happened and they had to intervene.” Taking the rubber ball from her cleavage where it was secretly kept, she rubbed it against her tanned tunic before handing it to Cara.

Taking the ball in her hands, Eris watched as she began to play with it. It seemed to calm her a bit, being able to fidget with something. She was so young. Eris was only six years older than Cara, but those six years had a lot of learning and experience packed within them. She had been in the real world for a while now, everything out of your control, but the girl she was comforting had still lived at home with her parents, not having to face the teeth the world had to offer.

“Have you noticed the little skulls around their necks?” Eris looked at Cara’s face, waiting for her to turn and look at her.

“That’s not helping.” She turned her face to Eris, wondering what the hell she was doing bringing up the skulls.

She scooted closer to Cara, whispering, “Do you think that they thought they were cute, so they slapped them on some string and began wearing it?” Eris let a smile creep across her face as she began to mock her captors.

Alegra burst out laughing, never thinking of that before. “Are you saying that those beasts are fuckin’ fashionistas?!” She couldn’t control the volume in her voice as it carried through the room, forcing her to cover her mouth while small snorts escaped her.

“Yeah, they walk around each other and give them compliments on their new necklaces.” Cara added in, letting a smile stealthily come across her face as they all began to imagine the Predators showing off their new necklaces to each other.

“And when they get a new one and no one compliments it, they go to their rooms, throw themselves on their beds and start sobbin’ because it took them forever to find that particular species to turn into jewelry!” Alegra’s snorts were more frequent as the other two laughed with her.

“Like a bunch of high school girls.” Eris added in, laughing at Alegra’s comment while the other cells began to look at them as they were each taken by the Predators in the meantime.

“Does this string match my new skull? I really want it to match!” Cara’s head tilted back as she laughed, a snort coming out of her as well, “And they hold up different strings to their friends while they ask!”

“Yeah Steve, that one matches way more than that one!” Alegra chimed in once more, tears flowing down her cheeks.

“Steve?!” Eris could feel the tears welling up in her eyes as well as she tried to imagine the Predators having completely human like names. Just imagining one of them named ‘Steve’ as they walked in to grab another group sent more hilarious tears to her eyes as they peered over at them. “More like Chulonka or something.” She whispered to where only Cara and Alegra could hear it.

“Chulonka?!” Alegra didn’t control her tone as the Predators looked at them, all of them tearfully laughing uncontrollably.

“Bolong!” Cara couldn’t keep herself maintained either.

As the three girls laughed, Eris hadn’t felt this comfortable in a long time. Sure, they were captured, but in this moment, they were just three girls having fun. She knew it wouldn’t last so she was going to soak it all up while she could. The future was unknown, but right now was certain and she was having a blast. Plus, mocking their captors made her feel better about it, being able to laugh it off and see them as something else like high school girls instead of ferocious killers, even if it was only for a little while.

“Lechuga!” Alegra created another one.

“That’s lettuce in Spanish!” Eris fell to the ground, rolling to her back as she looked up at the ceiling, picturing the Predators with heads of lettuce.

“So? It sounds like something they would be called!” The blue-eyed girl defended her name, giggles nowhere near subsiding.

They laughed for what seemed like forever until they heard their cell unlock. With tear-filled eyes, they all looked over at the door in unison. The two Predators stood outside their open cage and just looked at them, not too certain on what the hell they were doing.

Standing up, they all wiped their tears from their faces as they began to march out of the cell and to the hallway, seeing that every other girl had made it back to their cells safely washed a wave of security over them. The cold metal beneath their feet felt good on their feet as they walked the all-too-familiar steps to their snacking room.

“Lechuga Cabesa.” Eris whispered as they entered the room, breaking the tension so they could relax here. The other two girls began to snicker behind her, knowing that she had just called them Lettuce Heads. When they were fully in, they all marched over to the food table, except for Eris.

Staying behind, she wanted answers in what had happened, and since the crescent scarred Predator was there, she was going to try. He was the only one who understood her, but she knew he wouldn’t know Spanish since there were no Spanish girls on the ship. Or at least she hoped.

“What happened to that girl.” Eris looked way up at the crescent scarred Predator, he had to be over 7 feet tall. His large muscles rippling up his body, showing no signs of weakness in the slightest. His mottled skin was almost a work of art, swirling and fading into different directions, it all worked so beautifully together.

“Thei-de.” Tichinde replied in his native tongue, seeing what the bold ooman would do in response.

“Cut the crap, I know you speak English.” She spoke before she could think about it. Her hand cupping over her mouth before she slowly let her arms slip back down to her side. She had said it and now she had to own it. This is where Pike came into play.

Tichinde watched the ooman jolt as he let out a laugh, knowing that she could feel it throughout her body. Every time he let out a laugh for the first time around an ooman woman, their reactions were all the same. He understood what she had said, being used to ooman customs and weird speak. It wasn’t the first time he was told to ‘cut the crap’, knowing that it didn’t mean to actually cut S’yuit-de.

“Dead.” His eyes met hers, watching her face drop in unison with what he had just said.

“Did she kill her?” Eris figured it must have been the case since she looked pretty bad when she left.

“H’ko,” He shook his head at her, “We did.”

Eris’s eyes lit up as she cocked her head to the side in reaction. “Why? Could you not help her?” She looked at the table where the other girls were chatting, not paying her and the Predators any attention. She had just calmed down Cara that these creatures wouldn’t harm her, and now he was telling her that he and the beast next to him had killed the innocent woman.

“Could help, didn’t.” He studied her face, her body, and her actions. Intrigued by this female, he noticed her bold actions and definitely took note of them. She was daring, and he liked it.

“Why didn’t you?” She could feel her brow furrow as anger began to build up within her. She felt her heart begin to race, wondering why the hell they didn’t help her when they were more than capable of doing so.

“Not worth it-”

“She was a life!” She spoke immediately after he finished his sentence, not giving him a chance to explain even though she knew he wouldn’t. Eris tore her eyes from him, looking down at the ground, “All life is worth it, especially the innocent.” She kept her head facing down, bringing her eyes to look back at him, fists clenching. Her eyes shifted between both Predators, but ultimately it landed and stayed on the crescent scarred one. Her eyes dropped down a bit to notice the little skulls that she and her friends had previously made fun of, but not a crack of a smile found her face. Knowing that they killed an innocent woman when they could have helped her only showed her that they were in fact killers. The skulls on their necks were little trophies. They were monsters.

“Not hers.” Tichinde flinched a bit when she had used the word innocent. One of the rules he was raised on, a code that all Yautja were taught when they were younger and most lived by, was to never bring harm to an innocent. Those who have done no harm should have no harm done to them. With putting the woman down, it also loosely broke another law of theirs, to never kill the pregnant or sick. She was wounded, not by his own hand, but she would be considered sick since she wasn’t at one-hundred percent functionality. Even though he was considered a Bad Blood, the rules were forever etched into his head.

Tichinde had never had an ooman strike him like that before, making him flinch at a word before. He wasn’t expecting it. He had not seen an ooman woman act like this so early in their time with Yautja. It normally took years before one was as mouthy and bold as she was being. And for one to be able to affect him so much within the first few days of capture, he knew he would fetch quite a price from her, or even keep her for himself if she kept this up.

“Yes hers.” She brought her face back up to meet his, speaking low after her outburst. “What you did was not fair. If you could have healed her, you should have.” Her eyes never broke from his.

In Tichinde and Tracker’s eyes, she was challenging him. By keeping eye contact, she was showing that she wanted to fight him, a fight she would easily lose. Jehdin Jehdin, one on one. An act like this would lead her to the ring, all armor off and hand to hand combat with him. Knowing oomans, though, Tichinde knew that she didn’t know what her body language was saying to him in his language. She was upset, the fire in her eyes was clear enough to tell.

“Can’t go back now.” Tichinde ended the conversation, placing a hand on her delicate shoulder before turning her around and giving her a slight nudge to go take care of business before he would return her and the other two back to their cells.

“She challenged you,” Tracker looked over at Tichinde as his hand left the ooman female, her gaze settling back on them before she walked towards the women. “Why did you let her?” Tracker had only been known as a Bad Blood for a couple of decades, not quite knowing the ooman customs like his leader Tichinde had. She was making a blatant offer for Jehdin Jehdin, he didn’t know why he didn’t put her in her place.

“She does not know she challenged me.” Tichinde crossed his arms across his chest as he placed his back on the metal door, leaning against it. Since taking in Tracker, he had been confused by a lot of ooman ways. All of them that Tracker had encountered thus far had been passive and submissive, going with the flow as they cried and begged for everything to stop, to take them home. But this one was bold, showing Tracker a brand-new side of oomans that he had never seen before.

“Then what does she mean?” Tracker questioned while watching the ooman women from across the room, who periodically looked back at them.

“To find a reaction, to intimidate, to stay engaged in the conversation.” Tichinde’s eyes looked in the same spot that Tracker’s were.

“Oomans are confusing.” The amber-eyed Yautja mimicked his leaders’, folding his arms and resting his back against the metal of their ship. It was easier for him to train Hell-Hounds than it was to understand these oomans.

Eris shot her eyes back at the two Predators when she heard the word ‘ooman’, knowing they were talking about her. Squinting her eyes, she shot them a glare before returning to the food on the table.

“What was that all about?” Alegra looked back with Eris, her eyes darting back forward to look back at the food before her friend did.

“Nothing.” Eris looked back at the food, looking at what she wanted next. She wanted to keep the horrific news from the two women next to her, not wanting them to start worrying. If she was honest with herself, she knew that if they started to worry that she would start to worry too. The emotional mimic would come out and she didn’t want that, she needed to stay level headed.

Taking a bite out of a purple, squishy looking thing, she set her food down before heading back to the restrooms. Closing the door behind her, she paced back and forth as thoughts began to race through her mind. She hated keeping this from the girls, but she knew she had to. She found herself being their emotional support program, but who would be hers? Though her friends offered her comfort, she knew they would not be able to handle her once she broke down. Depression was one hell of a thing.

Placing both of her hands on her head, she felt the hair on her head start to grow back. The velvet texture of the small hairs only reminding her of whose domain she was in. How could she have talked to the beasts like that? What was it about them that set her off? Better yet, how had Pike come so far to stare face to face with the devil himself? She was still amazed that she had yelled at them and stood her ground. If she was this Pike back on Earth, she didn’t see herself being homeless for much longer.

Sitting down and relieving herself, she cleaned up before returning back outside with the two girls who had already done their business when she had been talking to the Predators. Picking up the food she had left on the table, she began to finish it before taking some water and letting it slip down her throat.

With the sound of the door opening, the three girls looked over at the creatures next to it; they knew it was time to go. Heading towards them, Eris again set her eyes on one of them, this time Tracker. His skin was different patterned than the crescent scarred one. His height was also superior than that of his kith and kin. His demeanor, more rugged and uncontrolled than him, too.

“Yeyin,” Remembering what Tichinde had just said about the oomans and their behaviors, Tracker couldn’t help but flare his mandibles at her as he spoke from deep within his gut, watching her unknowingly challenge him. “Ki’cte.” He could at least beat a Hell-Hound, he unfortunately couldn’t touch this one. He’d have to learn how to read oomans but throwing away all that he and his species were, the way they worked and perceived things, to make room for ooman culture was going to take some time. If he was able to throw away his code, he'd find a way to work with this, especially since it was his job.

“I don’t know what you’re saying.” She broke eye contact with him as she passed by, following the other beast into the halls, eyes rolling deeply into her skull.

“He says you’re brave to stare at him. He also told you that he has had enough of it.” Tichinde didn’t bother to look at the girl as she followed him.

“Then maybe he should stop staring back at me.” Pike was taking more over her than she thought, not being able to stop the sass that she was throwing. She was pissed at them for the life of the innocent woman and that was something that wouldn’t go away so quickly.

“Staring means challenge,” She was a curious ooman, “If you stare at him, you are asking him to fight with you one on one.” He listened intently to see if he could hear her breathing, studying the pattern, wanting to know if that intimidated her knowing that she had been challenging the greater species to a match.

Turning her head back to look at the Predator trailing behind, she noticed that Alegra and Cara had immediately brought their eyes to the ground. No one knew that excessive staring meant a challenge, and now that they knew it, they were trying their best not to look into the Predator’s eyes. Eris, on the other hand, stared at him for a moment, now full knowing that it meant a contest.

Her hazel eyes looked deep within his as she continued to walk. A smile crept on her face when she saw him flaring his mandibles. “Thigh Day.” She tried her best to speak the words that the crescent scarred one had spoken when describing the woman who had died. Obviously not being able to resemble the clicks in between the syllables, she spoke it the best way she could. So, she looked at him and said ‘dead’.

Tichinde clicked his mandibles together at the amusement going on behind him. She was feisty, something he never experienced from their kind before. He never kept an ooman, so he only knew of them to be meek creatures, but this one was showing him what oomans could be. She was afraid, he could smell it, but her mouth was nothing but boldness. “Don’t do it, Tracker.”

Looking behind, he could see Tracker pissed as all get out. His mandibles were flared while his walk became even more purposeful. Tichinde could tell that he wanted to beat her into submission, to show her who was boss and what was appropriate to say to him. He used to be that way, too. After centuries, Tichinde learned how to center himself, to find his zazin. It was rare for an ooman to anger him, it hadn’t happened since his excursion where he was labeled a Bad Blood on Ryushi. Either way, he knew exactly what Tracker was feeling, though since he was on the outside looking in, it was quite comical. He remembered when he couldn’t calm himself, it wasn’t unlike Yautja kind to rage about. Tracker would learn, and if he didn’t and he tried to kill an ooman, he would stop him. Bad Blood or not, this was a business and she would fetch quite a trade.

“What did you say to him?” Eris tested to see what kind of mess she had caught herself in. She could feel the heat off of him, knowing that she struck a nerve. The smell that started to fill the hallway also made her realize that she had done something to piss him off. At the moment, she didn’t care. The Predator in front of her seemed to get a laugh out of it, so she figured she was at least safe for now.

“Not to kill you.” Tichinde faced back forward, closing in on the prison room.

Looking back once more at him, she brought her sights to the girls who were in turn looking at her. When Alegra mouthed ‘calm down’, Eris shifted her eyes to the floor before nodding. She could have potentially put them all in danger, and she really needed to calm down. She had no idea her blood was boiling. “Thank you.” She spoke to the one in front of her. It was most likely because of him that they weren’t slaughtered. He was enjoying the abuse while the other one wanted to cause some abuse to her. Taking in a deep breath, she tried to calm herself.

Being ushered back into the cage, Eris made sure to give no more eye contact to either of them. She didn’t want to cause any more trouble than she already had, and she was surprised at the amount that she had already done.

“What was that about?” Alegra asked when the Predators took the remaining two women from the screaming cell and took them out of the room.

“Honestly,” Eris sank down against the bars until her butt hit the floor, “I have no idea. I just felt this rage take over me and I couldn’t help but reply back exactly how I wanted.”

“You can’t do that, this isn’t Nolan, they aren’t human.” Alegra’s voice was stern, the first time she had heard it this way. “We could have been hurt or killed because of that.”

“I know,” Eris looked at Alegra and Cara who were both sitting a couple feet from her. “I won’t do it again.” She knew she had to get whatever was going on with her under control. Was she finally standing up for herself since Nolan? Because if so, this was not the time or the place for redemption.

“It’s okay this time since nothin’ happened, but next time we might not be so lucky.” Alegra crawled next to her, showing support rather than anger. Cara trailing along.

“It was cool to see that we can strike a nerve, though.” Cara surprisingly added in, “Made me feel more than Human for a moment. An equal to them.” She smiled at both Alegra and Eris, who both looked at each other with confusion before looking back at her.

“Not gonna’ lie, it was.” Alegra concurred. “But no more, or at least in moderation.” She lightly shoulder checked Eris.

“Thanks guys.” Eris felt their acceptance once more, happy that they weren’t mad at her for too long. Though she was older than the two of them, they balanced her out. Had they not been there, she would have continued and possibly got herself killed, and that definitely wouldn’t help her in any way, shape, or form. “The Lechuga Cabesas can’t handle all of this.”

They shared another laugh before each of them laid down. Alegra and Cara were still tired from being suddenly woken up with the screaming cell, and Eris was never sleeping anyway so she was even more tired than the two of them. With everything that had just transpired, now that it had calmed down she could feel her body crave sleep.

Resting her head in the crease of her inner elbow, Eris let her suddenly heavy eyes shut. Taking in a few deep breaths, she knew that she would be asleep at any point. A yawn escaped her mouth, solidifying that she was about to pass out. Letting the sound of her friends’ breathing and the faint cries and protests of the other cells of women being taken to get food and use the restroom lull her to sleep, it was only mere moments before all of her consciousness faded from her.


	4. Chapter 4

Heavy eyes began to open, scanning the room with blurred vision before her sights cleared up; sitting up, Eris knew that she had slept hard. It was weird for her when she realized that this was the best sleep that she had had in months. Never in a million years would she imagine that sleeping on this metal floor would have been better than sleeping on the grass outside or even a cot in a shelter. She was also surprised that she had gotten any sleep on this ship at all. Normally, people don’t fall asleep unless they know they are safe, since anything can happen when you’re knocked out. But here she was, sleeping like she had never slept before. Maybe it was because she knew at this point nothing worse could happen to her, she was already taken by a foreign race and locked up in a cage heading to god knows where; this was the hardest she would have it and if not, her friends in the cell would wake her up before anything bad could happen. Looking over at her friends who were talking to each other on the other side of the cell, she brought both of her fists to her eyes to rub them. 

“How long was I out for?” She brought her still sleepy eyes to the girls before scanning the room, letting her eyes fall on the cell where the girl was murdered. The poor girl thought that she could sleep and nothing worse could happen to her, it was awful what had happened. What once contained four girls now only had two. 

“Not too long, I’d say about a couple hours or so.” Alegra brought her arm in front of her to look at an imaginary watch. 

“Having no real sense of time is annoying.” Cara laughed at Alegra’s actions before resting up against the bars. 

“You got that right. Has it been a minute or an hour? We will never fricken know.” Alegra brought her hand down back to her lap before standing up to make her way to sit next to Eris. “You might be used to it though, right? Since you were homeless and all.” 

Knowing she didn’t mean any offense, Eris thought about how she had no real sense of time when she was on Earth. The key difference, though, was she could gauge what the time was by where the sun was. Sure, in the summer the sun really never went down, but she at least had an idea of what time it was. “I guess you could say that.” 

“I hate not knowing how long we have been here.” Eris and Alegra looked over at Cara as she began to make her way over to sit next to them, sandwiching Alegra in the middle. 

“You better get used to it, I have a feelin’ they don’t have clocks on Predatoria.” The two girls on the outside looked in at Alegra as she spoke.

“Predatoria?” Eris could feel the corner of her mouth lift in a smile. First Alegra called the creatures ‘Predators’, then she called this place the ‘Intergalactic Slave Trade’, and now she was calling the planet they were probably going to ‘Predatoria’. Eris couldn’t help but admire her creative mind. If they were back on Earth, she was sure that Alegra would love a conversation with Crazy Suzy, and Eris would love to sit in and listen.

“Well where else would the Predators take us? Vermont?” Alegra shot a blue-eyed look over at Eris.

“Vermont?” Eris immediately asked right after Alegra had finished her sentence. She wasn’t wrong, but she was comedically unsure where Vermont had come into the picture. “I just figured you’d call it ‘Lechuga Cabesa-land’ or something.” Her half smile turned into a full grin. 

“Could you imagine if after all this time, they really were bringing us to Vermont?” Cara piped up, looking at the two other girls next to her.

“I would eat all of the maple candy with absolutely no regrets!” Alegra slouched a little, placing her hands on her stomach while imagining being filled to the top in maple candies.

“Oh yeah, well hey there humans, this is Vermont. Why don’t we all go outside and tap a tree for syrup?” Cara spoke, pretending to be a Predator with a robotic voice.

“And here, take this bouquet of Red Clovers!” Eris Added, “Oh look, a Hermit Thrush just flew by!”

“WHY DO YOU KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT VERMONT?!” Alegra began to laugh at Eris’ useless Vermont information.

“Back in the day when I was in elementary school, we all had to do a state project. We all picked a state out of a hat and I got Vermont. I never thought I’d ever use the information learned, but here I am throwing out some facts.” She laughed as well, never thinking she would use the information she learned in elementary school about a state she had never been to in in an alien spaceship surrounded by captured humans. 

“What else do you know about Vermont?” Cara asked.

“You know that singer JoJo?” 

“The one who sang the ‘Get Out’ song?” 

“Yep, she was born in Vermont.”

“WHY DO YOU KNOW THAT SHE WAS BORN IN VERMONT?” Alegra started to laugh again. “I highly doubt you learned that in elementary school. Was she even famous then?” Her tone calmed down, but the laughter stayed up.

“I never said I learned that fact in elementary school, she just asked if I knew any other facts about Vermont.” Eris couldn’t help but stare at Alegra, who was still just laughing away. Quickly peering around the room, she noticed that the other cells were glaring at them. How dare they have fun in this hell.

“She didn’t become famous for a while after, right?” Cara asked again.

“I know useless facts about Vermont, not JoJo.” A laugh escaped Eris’s mouth once more. They had to find something to talk about in the boring cell, and this was the topic it seems they had chosen. Again, Eris knew that if it wasn’t for this cell, she would be in far worse shape.

The laugh was short lived when the sound of the door opening from across the room echoed in the metal walls. As Eris looked over at it, she could tell that there was something different about this encounter. A typical Predator visit had only two of the creatures, but this time five of them had stepped in. She recognized the crescent moon one right away, along with the amber-eyed one she hashed it out with earlier, but the other three were a mystery to her. She had probably seen them before, but they all looked the same since she had no real memorable encounter with them. 

One by one, the Predators began to open up the cells, escorting the girls out and lining them up at the door. This was something that they hadn’t done before. Looking over at Alegra and Cara to see if they had any idea what was happening, Eris became concerned when they had no answers for her. It looked like they were all in this for the first time together. 

The order in which they unlocked the cells was different, too. Normally they opened one side all the way down, then started with the back of the other side and made their way back to the front. Not this time. Starting at random cells and making their way throughout the room, Eris watched as they specifically lined up each of the girls the way they wanted instead of just letting them lineup themselves randomly. After all of the other cells were done, they noticed that they had left their cell for last. When the crescent scarred one made his way to the cell, they all watched as he unlocked it, letting the metal door swing open. Standing up, they knew that they had to get in line. When Eris tried to go first, she was stopped. Looking up at the creature blocking her path, her heart began to race a little bit at her sudden stop. With his other hand, the Predator gestured for Cara to get in line first, then Alegra, and lastly Eris. 

“Why am I last?” She asked the creature, knowing he could understand her and reply if he chose. 

Tichinde looked down at her. He could see the stubble of her hair growing back, leaving her head with a darker complex on the top from when he first removed the hair. “Because you are last.” He replied as he gave a nod to the Yautja at the front of the line, signaling that the oomans were all ready to leave, ignoring the girls’ glares at him in confusion as the line began to slowly walk out of the room.

This was a moment Tichinde was most excited about. They had finally made it to a neutral Bad Blood clan ship. This ship was filled with other Bad Blooded clans selling goods from whatever trade they dabbled in. Clans from around the universe would gather here to sell or trade, whatever they needed the could probably find here. He was excited to get rid of this lot of oomans, knowing full well he and his crew would take a vacation from it before returning next season to start the process over again.

It had been a while since he had a good hunt and he knew he was ready for one. This business of his kept him well stocked, but it grew tiring to have to babysit the soft little things. Each time he saw them, he knew that there was absolutely no competition between him and them. They were scared, meek little things and he was far superior. Looking down at the saucy ooman, he thanked his luck that at least one of them gave him some entertainment, especially on his last trip of the season which was usually filled with annoyance and aggravation. 

Looking over her shoulder, Eris could see the Predator staring down at her. Her stomach turned a little before she brought her sights back to the line. She didn’t like thinking about what he was probably thinking about. Was he making fun of her? Mocking her? Planning on cutting her up and eating her tonight? A shiver coursed through her body at the thought. Hopefully, he wasn’t thinking about her at all, even though he was looking straight at her. 

Focusing on her surroundings, she was familiar with the part of the ship they were on, but it didn’t take long for her to notice the familiarity wash away. Peeking her head around the side of the line to see the very front of it, her eyes winced when she saw a brand-new type of light enter the ship through the open door. Clenching them shut for a moment, she began to blink rapidly to try to get used to the light faster to see what was out there. 

All of the girls in line had the same reaction to the light, stopping the line and its progress outside. It wasn’t long until the Predators began to push each human forward, Eris included, to get them off of their ship. When her eyes were fully adjusted, she felt her entire body sink into the floor at the sight of all of the Predators lingering in whatever sort of place this was. It resembled a market to her, some sort of sick and twisted market with a bunch of foreign things at different weird looking stands. 

Predators of all sizes and colors roamed about, making her stomach clench even more than she thought it could. How was it that there were so many of them? While on the ship, she was surrounded by humans and regularly saw a couple Predators here and there but the humans outnumbered the beasts. Now, she was surrounded by Predators every which way she looked. Behind her, Predators. To her left, Predators. To her right, Predators. In front of her, oh hey look, how shocking, Predators! Not only was she surrounded by them, they were all looking at her like she was a piece of meat. She had felt imprisoned by these creatures, but this was the first time she really felt like she was just a piece of meat to them. It had never really occurred to her that this was an actual race of beings, but seeing this population she knew there had to be more out there and that thought alone killed all hope for her. Hope to go home, though she already knew that was out of the picture unless she convinced one of them to take her back, like a 90-day return policy. Hope to live. Hope to ever feel joy again. All of it.

Looking around the weird alien market, Eris ran into the back of Alegra when she hadn’t noticed that the line had stopped moving. Peeking her head once more to the front of the line, she watched as a Predator stopped the line and began to usher the first girl into the door that blocked the rest of the women. “Crap, sorry” Eris spoke as Alegra looked behind her to see what was happening. “Do you think it’s a new ship or what?” She was confused on where the girl had gone.

“I don’t know, it could be or we’re all about to die.” Alegra whispered, her accent still strong under the hushed tones.

“You’re really calm if we’re all about to die.” Eris studied her friend’s facial expression. She seemed stone cold, even though the market ship was hot as can be. It’s exactly how she felt when she was first brought into the ship only days ago. “Maybe it’s Vermont.” She tried to lighten the mood, seeing Alegra’s posture relax a little. 

“Thanks, I needed that.” She took in a deep breath, “I think I am more shocked than scared right now. There are so many of them that I am surprised my legs let me get this far.” Her blue eyes looked at Eris with sadness in them. 

“It’s going to be-“ Eris tried to comfort her friend before the Amber-eyed Predator interrupted. Looking up at him, she shot him a surprised glare.

“Quiet.” Tracker spoke as he looked at the troublemaker below him. She had caused him nothing but inconvenience their whole time together that now she was about to be sold off, he wanted her to be quiet. She was almost gone and he couldn’t be happier. She would fetch the clan a great price and that is all she was good for. She would soon be someone else’s problem, to hunt and kill or keep as a pet companion; he didn’t care which.

“Only speaking up as we’re getting rid of them?” Tichinde spoke as he made his way from checking on the front of the line to the back to make sure everyone was accounted for, which was surprisingly in his favor. Typically, one or more oomans would try to run off, sneak off, or something of the sort, but this batch had really been easy. Even with the whole incident of one female attacking another female, this trip was a breeze. 

“My patience is running thin with this one.” Tracker kept his challenging eyes on the ooman below. Even though he knew that she didn’t know she was challenging him, he kept his gaze. A challenge was a challenge and he wasn’t about to get in the habit of backing down from an ooman just because they didn’t know what they were doing. He would keep his stare and keep his dominance, if anyone was breaking contact, it would be her. 

“Just a little bit more time and she’ll be out of your hands.” Tichinde placed a hand on his comrade’s shoulder. Tracker was still getting used to the trade and was a valuable Yautja to have on his team.

Letting go of his shoulder, Tichinde made his way back to the front of the line and through the door where he had just placed the first female. It was time for him to get rid of his lot and he couldn’t be more thrilled about it. Taking the female’s arm, he gently placed her for all of the gathered Yautja to see. She tried to run off as soon as he took his hand off of her, but he easily brought her back and forcibly made her stand still until she got the picture that she wasn’t about to go anywhere.

Looking out into the room that was slowly filling with Yautja, Tichinde waited a moment before he would speak. He had been in this rooms hundreds if not thousands of times. He had seen countless Yautja battle on the raised, circular platform in the middle of the room for his product. It was one of his favorite things to watch: Jehdin, Jehdin. 

“Meek, emotional, submissive. Anything but a challenge this one. Whatever you want of her, she’ll do out of fear, as you can see from her display moments ago. A fair trade for her would be a T’gou U’linja, made from whatever material.” He spoke as more Yautja began to walk in, seeing what this clan had to offer. “Any takers?” 

When he had finished speaking, he watched as a Yautja made his way into the center of the ring that the crowd surrounded. Standing there and waiting for a challenger to challenge him for this ooman, he was awarded the rights to the female when no one stepped up to fight for her to be their property. Handing the Net Gun over to one of Tichinde’s men, he smiled as this game was just starting. He loved starting out with the ones he knew wouldn’t fetch him or his clan a good price first before getting to the nitty gritty. As the females would come out, the challenges would increase for their right to trade for them. Nodding his head at one of his clan members to continue on, he brought another ooman out to repeat the process. 

“What do you think is happening to them?” Cara turned her head back to look at both Alegra and Eris. 

“We’re going to find out soon. The front of the line is disappearing and it is only a matter of time before we’re next.” Alegra replied back, keeping her eyes forward. 

“Do you think it’s a procedure like when we got our hair taken off?” Cara faced forward after making eye contact with the Predator behind Eris. 

“Maybe. I really don’t want to find out and just knowing that I will here soon scares the shit out of me.” Alegra admitted.

Taking her hand and extending it forward, Eris began to hold Alegra’s from behind her. She hadn’t experienced this side of Alegra this whole endeavor, so she could tell that she was really scared. Hell, she was too, but she knew if she started to show that emotion that all hell would break loose for her. She had done good this far, thanks to the two girls in front of her, that she felt it almost natural to stay calm for their sake. “We’ll make it through this, guys.” Eris watched as Alegra repeated the process to hold Cara’s hand from behind with her other hand. “Whatever they put us through, we can do it. We’re badasses, remember!” Her voiced raised slightly above a whisper. 

Taking her free hand, she brought her digits to her cleavage to retrieve the ball that had kept the girls sane in their times of boredom. Placing it between her and Alegra’s hand, she let go when it was fully in the Blue-eyed girls’ grasp. When Alegra looked back to give a smile and nod to Eris, she couldn’t help but smile back. 

Looking forward again, she noticed that it was starting to take longer and longer for each one of the girls to get ushered through the door. She couldn’t fathom why it took some longer than the others to be able to enter, and it frankly started to concern her. What could have been a simple thing like when they got their hair taken off was turning into thoughts of torture or something. Crazy Suzy could have probably told her what was going on here. If she ever made it back to Earth, she’d have to take her classes. 

As each one of the women made it through the door, it was Cara’s time to go through. Eris could feel her heart start to beat rapidly as they were about to take Cara away from her. Breaking out of the small line, Eris moved past Alegra to hug Cara. “You can do this, you’ll be okay! We’re right behind you.” She squeezed tightly before the Predator from behind grabbed her and forced her back into the line where she once was. She watched as Cara turned back with tearful eyes. Eris knew she was saying ‘goodbye’ with them since she was about to be placed into the unknown. “It’ll be okay.” She whispered before Cara was completely out of sight, the door closing and separating them. 

Eris brought her hand back to hold Alegra’s. She tried to steady her breathing as she felt her heart sink. She couldn’t believe that it was just the two of them now, and soon she’d be by herself. She held onto the hope that they would be reunited and that she would feel silly for feeling this way in the near future. 

What felt like hours had passed until the door opened so that they could take Alegra. Squeezing her hand tightly before flipping her friend around so that she could hug her, too, she could feel Alegra trembling in their embrace. “You got this! If we could make it through that ship, you can make it through Predatoria!” It took the Amber-eyed predator to pull the two apart. “You’ll be okay!” Her whisper was no longer as she spoke her words fully to Alegra, who was speechless. Eris could see the absolute terror in her eyes as she, too, was taken through the door. 

She was alone. Eris began to tremble as she stood there; no one in front of her and no one behind her. She wondered why she didn’t say her goodbyes to them, why did she just say that everything was going to be fine when she had no idea that it was going to be? She shook her head as her eyes made their way to the door that she would be entering in only a matter of moments. Feeling dreadful tears begin to well up in her eyes, she tried to look up to get rid of them, not wanting to start to panic now. For all she knew, everything would be fine. It would be her and the other two embracing in a reunion hug. 

The longer she stood outside the door, the more alone she felt. This was the first time she had been alone throughout this journey. She wasn’t good when she was by herself. Thoughts of what was about to come started filling her head as her breathing began to increase. She wanted someone to be behind her right now to let her know that it was okay, that everything would be fine, but instead she had an angry Predator behind her. Desperate to feel someone’s hand reach out and hold hers, Eris tried her best to summon Pike. She needed to be brave, she needed to survive, she needed to live. Staring at the door in front of her, she began to try to even her breathing, to toughen up before she would go in there. She could feel Pike slowly trying to surface. 

The door opened. 

Looking up at the Predator that would take her, she started to immediately walk through the door before he could try to pull her through it like he had done to all of the girls prior to her. She was making the choice to go in by herself, that way she wouldn’t panic. If she thought and felt like she was in control, it would make whatever was about to happen easier. She wasn’t forced through the door, she chose to enter it. Pseudo freedom was the only way she could think of it, but freedom still. A conscious choice to take control back for her by eliminating it from the Predators. This was Pike. 

As she walked through the metal door, she turned the same way every other girl had gone and walked straight down a black, metal hallway until she reached one more door that opened as soon as she was mere feet from it. Her eyes grew as she found herself walking towards the Crescent scarred Predator with a crowd of other Predators watching her every move. Taking her eyes from him, she looked down at the creatures below her. When she was in the market only moments ago, there were a ton of Predators walking around, but it was nothing compared to who was in here. 

Scanning the room, she noticed a circular platform in the middle of it with electric green splattered all across it. She had no idea what was happening, but her heart sank when she didn’t see any of her friends. Continuing to walk towards the familiar beast, her eyes stayed on the creatures below as their yells and groans filled and echoed within the metal walls. “What’s going on here?” Eris asked the Predator who she knew would understand her and reply as she stopped right in front of him, folding her arms across her chest. She was uncomfortable to say the least, but at least this position didn’t come across as too weak in front of the beasts who looked at her like she was a buffet.

“You’ll see soon enough.” Tichinde looked down at her before scooting her over a few feet on her own platform where the other females had stood before her. 

Looking out into the crowd, Tichinde brought his hands up to silence everyone. “Lastly, we have this female. Strong, stubborn, iron-willed. It is because of this ooman that the other two before her had turned out the way they did. Curiosity is what fuels her. She has asked me several questions since being taken and has pissed off Tracker a time or two.” He stopped as he peered over at Tracker while the crowd began to rile up once more. “Asking for D’lex and lots of it for equal trade on this-” 

“Pike!” a voice began to scream out from the crowd. “Pike, help me! Please!” Cara began to scream through the crowd as Eris watched a Predator carrying her on his shoulder, heading out of the room. 

“Cara!” Eris felt her voice crack as her attention was taken off of the foreign words the Crescent scarred Predator was saying and to her friend being carried out. “Cara hold on!” without even thinking, she began to climb over the metal bar that safely kept her from falling off of it and into the crowd below. Launching herself off of the platform she was on, she felt as her body was caught by the creatures below. “Let go!” She began to kick and try to get out of their grasp to make it to her friend. “I’m coming! Cara! Get the fuck off of me! Let her go! Cara!” Her voice cracked again as she screamed over the loud bellows of the Predators in the crowd. 

All fear had left her body the moment she heard her friend calling for her. As she stood on the stage and watched her friend calling out to her, she did what her body felt was natural, and that was helping her friend. “She’s just a kid! Let me go to her!” She struggled as she felt her body lift up off of the Predator that she landed on, feeling her body fling into the air for a couple of moments until the Crescent Predator caught her to bring her back on the stage, safely behind the bar she had previously jumped over. “Please, let me go to her! She’s innocent!” She still tried to fight her way to her friend.

“Pike!” Cara’s voice echoed throughout the room once more before the Predator that held her finally made it out of the room. And just like that, she was gone. 

“Fuck!” Eris screamed out, elongating the word to last loudly for a couple of seconds as her hands white knuckled the bar in front of her as the Predator behind her remained holding onto her waist. She didn’t know what she was feeling. When she had watched Cara go earlier, there was a possibility that everything was going to be okay. But to see her friend screaming for her to help her broke her heart and only confirmed that it was not going to be fine. Looking up at where Cara left the room with teary eyes, she shot a look back up at the Predator next to her. “Fuck you!” She spat out as she fought back tears of anger. “Fuck you and your entire fucking race! You’re all cowards!” She couldn’t help her anger anymore. She was like a mama bear and someone had just messed with her cub. Turning to look at the crowd of Predators, she brought up her right hand and began to flip them all off before retuning her sights to the Crescent one. Pike was definitely out.

It took her a moment of staring up at the Predator before her senses kicked back in, the room was louder than ever. Taking her hate filled gaze, she decided to share it with the rest of the room again. They all stared at her and seemed to be watching for what she would do next. Their mandibles flaring with each holler they made her way. She didn’t know what they were saying, but she knew what she wanted to say to all of them.

In all of the years Tichinde had been doing this, he had never seen what had just transpired. Looking down at the girl, he couldn’t believe that she flung herself into a crowd of Bad Blooded Yautja warriors to try to help her friend. Her chances of making it to her was infinity to none, yet she still took her chances. Listening to the crowd and bringing his eyes back to them, he repeated, “D’lex, and lots of it!” He watched as the crowd practically began to beat each other up just to get on stage. She had made quite the display, and it excited damn near all of the Yautja in the room. If he couldn’t physically see it, he could definitely smell it.   
Eris watched as the foreign creatures began to make their way on top of the platform before going apeshit on each other. She watched as two of the Predators began to beat the shit out of each other, learning what and where all of the electric green came from that plastered the floor. When one of them had fallen, the next would come up and challenge. 

She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Why were they all fighting each other? She watched on as her knuckles stayed white in reaction to what she was seeing. She had no clue as to what the hell was going on. “What the hell is going on?!” She decided to ask.

“They are fighting for you.” Tichinde looked down at the ooman female before looking back to see who would win this round, knowing that there would be many. It was custom to avail in a fight and pay the price for a trade for an ooman female. If many Yautja wanted to pay what was asked for an ooman, then only the strongest would get what they wanted. 

“Why the hell are they fighting for me?” Eris looked at the crowd, now knowing what the hell was going on. But now she wanted to know ‘why the hell’. “Is this some sort of Intergalactic Slave Trade?” She couldn’t believe Alegra was right in this. Not for the fact that she was stupid, because she wasn’t, but for the fact that how the hell was this an Intergalactic Slave Trade?!

“Because of what you just did.” Tichinde kept his eyes on the crowd, watching one injured and defeated Yautja get pulled from the stage while another went up. “You could say that.” Oomans had interesting ways of putting things.   
“How did what I just do rile them up?” She had no clue as to why her display would cause them to want her more. If anything, she figured they would want her less for seeming too unruly.

“We Yautja like a challenge.” He brought his eyes down to meet hers. The look in them didn’t seem frightened, more curious than anything. She was angry, that was apparent, but he was fascinated at all of her curiousness. “And you are a challenge.”

“Yautja?” She knew she bastardized his language but didn’t frankly care. “Is that what you call yourselves?” 

“You Ooman, we Yautja.” He confirmed. 

“Predator, Yautja, I don’t give a flying fuck. I just want to save my friends.” She let go of the bars as she continued to watch the creatures fight in front of her. She felt drained. There was so much going on between being separated from her friends, having giant aliens fight in front of her for her, the yelling in the crowd, and just the down right anger and confusion her entire body was going through. Her adrenaline was wearing off and she didn’t like the after effects of it. Taking in a deep breath, she sat down on the small, circular platform that she was on, crisscrossing her legs. Placing her elbows on her thighs, she placed her head in her hands. This was exhausting.

Tichinde felt his eyes drifting more towards her than the fight going on. He was conflicted for the first time in his career of taking these oomans. He had never owned one because they were far too overemotional and complicated for him, but here she was tempting his every fiber. On one hand, if he didn’t like her, he could always trade her away. On the other hand, he couldn’t bear the thought of missing this opportunity and it turn out that she was an asset to him. He was moments from leaving the Clan ship and taking off on a hunt of his own, it might be nice to have company for it. He looked up to see the last Yautja standing on stage with no one else coming up to challenge him. This was his one and only chance. Looking once more at her, he made his decision. 

Jumping down off of the stage where the oomans were kept for showing, Tichinde landed on the ground before making his way up to the stage to face the bloodied Yautja. “Looks like I am your last competitor.” 

“Competitor?” The bloodied Yautja spoke. “You never even made it through your Chiva, Tichinde.” 

The Yautja in front of him was referring to his time spent on Ryushi. It was when he was a young Yautja, trying to pass his Chiva to become a blooded warrior. An ooman ended up blowing their ship up, injuring his then clan leader and killing two blooded Yautja. Since all leaders were dead or down for the count, Tichinde stepped up and led the others in battle, which ended in them all dying. Nearly escaping, he was labeled a Bad Blood by Dachande who ended up surviving his thought-to-be-fatal injuries. 

“That’s a lot of talk for someone with a past like yours.” Tichinde replied. The comment the Yautja in front of him would have bothered him had this been years ago, but he had accepted his past and since then have defeated xenomorphs. “See this scar on my head? I kill Bad Bloods all the time, you will be no different.”

“I will be no different?” The two Yautja began to walk the outer rim of the circular platform. “You say this to be a match to the death?”

“I’ll let you decide that when I’m standing over you, waiting to unleash the final blow or let you walk with your tail tucked between your legs!” Tichinde jumped across the platform to his opponent, landing a quick blow to his head.

With her head still in her hands Eris looked with wide eyes at what was happening in front of her. What the hell was that Crescent Predator doing? Slowly standing up, she began to hold onto the bars once more as she watched the two battle it out. More and more green blood began to cover the platform with each punch, kick, and scratch that each of them presented to the other. 

“What are you doing, fighting for my honor? Get the hell off of that thing!” Eris couldn’t even begin to fathom that these creatures were fighting over her, let alone why that particular Predator was fighting for her. This whole thing made absolutely no sense and she wasn’t about to get used to it. She stared at them, not being able to take her eyes off of what was happening.

“You hear that, she doesn’t even want you.” The almost champion spoke to Tichinde as they continued their battle dance with each other. 

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll be quiet!” Tichinde spoke to the female ooman back on her own platform as he continued to fight the brute in front of him. He wasn’t sure what she was doing, but he did know that she had no idea what she was talking about. “If she knew what we both had planned for her, she would choose me over you any day.” He spoke back to his opponent.

“You know what’s good for me? Not being here!” Tichinde heard the ooman shouting back at him, not being able to help but roll his eyes at the distraction she was making back there. 

“And what do you know of my plans?” Taking his leg, he quickly jabbed it in Tichinde’s side, forcing him to fall to a knee before quickly regaining his balance, backing up to dodge a striking blow.

“You’ve traded for quite a bit of my ooman women before, in fact you got on last season. Seeing as you don’t still have the female, I assume they’re all dead.” Tichinde forced another fist at the Yautja.

“And you plan on her living for more than a season?” He spit blood out of his mouth before trying to lunge after Tichinde once more.

“I take care of my things.” Wiping the blood from his brow that was falling into his eye, Tichinde knew that this idol conversation needed to end. 

Continuing to watch the two in front of her, Eris brought her face back to the crowd. She was relieved that they were all ignoring her now and watching the fights. Turning her head around to see if the Amber-eyed predator was still watching her, she saw that he was nowhere to be found. In fact, there was no one watching her at all. Slowly backing away from the stage and into the hallway she had entered in, she began to wonder if she was making the right move. On the one hand, she could stay and get claimed by whoever won the match. On the other hand, she could leave and try to hide somewhere to only eventually be found and be claimed by whoever won the match. 

If she stayed, she was only sealing her fate that this would be her life and she would look back on this moment and wonder why she didn’t try to do anything that would possibly help her escape. But if she were to go, she could also look back on this moment and wonder why she didn’t stay and just accept her fate because when they find her, she could go through some serious punishment. Weighing her options, she figured that both would result in her death in some sort of way, plus the Predators seemed to like the unpredictable fighter, so she found no harm in trying to get out. Turning around, she headed down the black metaled wall to find the door she entered in from, noticing that that too was unarmed, so she boldly walked right through it. 

Instant regret. 

What she didn’t take in account was the fact that on this side of the door were Predators that didn’t know why she was here. As she stood there looking at the Predators walking by, she turned around to try to reenter the fight club room. Locked.

Sighing deeply at her choices, Eris turned back around and looked at the whole marketplace with wide eyes, subtly being able to hear the roars from inside the room she was just in. There was nowhere to go from here, so she just began to walk around. She knew if she were to run, she would be an instant target for these creatures to look at, but if she walked around like she belonged here, confidently, and knew what she was doing, they would probably leave her alone. Probably…

As she began her fearful stroll, she tried not to meet the gaze of any of the creatures. She didn’t know where she was going, but she was definitely curious about a lot that was happening. In one section she saw the Predators cutting open weird creatures, taking their organs out and seemed to be selling them. Another section had weird materials being sold. In a different section, she saw what seemed to be plants that they were selling. Walking over to that one, she peered at the booth from afar, trying to see what plants they were offering. When her eyes met the Predator that was running the place, she backed up and began to walk the other way, hoping he would leave her alone.

“Ooman.” She heard the Predator call from behind her. Stopping in her tracks, she knew if she continued to walk away that she would be followed. Turning around, she looked over at the Predator at the plant booth. Walking back over to him, she was hoping that she seemed less suspicious this way since she knew he was calling for her and that ‘ooman’ and ‘human’ were the same thing.

“Yeah, what’s up?” She stopped a few feet from the booth, trying her best to not look like she was shaking and hyperventilating. 

“Where Yautja?” The way he was talking made Eris realize that this one didn’t really know English, which could definitely go in her favor. Had she not just been on a ship for days with these creatures, she knew that this would be a very different situation.

“He’s over there getting some materials.” Eris pointed to the section where random metals were being sold; it was a big enough section where she didn’t have to specifically point one of them out. She was happy she had just learned the word ‘Yautja’ because if not, she wouldn’t know how the hell to respond. She felt like she was a lost kid in a store where the employees bend their knees to be on the same level as the child to ask them where her parents were.

“Naxa?” The Predator picked up what looked like a piece of fruit and showed it to her. 

“Thigh day?” Eris remembered talking to the Predators earlier on the ship when the girl had died. They had said ‘thigh day’ referring to Death. She remembered these words because she kept thinking in her head ‘thigh day is death day’ referring to leg day workouts, which she was happy she did because she just had to use it to see if what he was offering her would cause her death. She was a bit proud of herself, being able to have a conversation with the being in front of her. 

The Predator shook his head at her. Walking up to him, Eris gently brought her hand up before taking the fruit from his hands. Claws? “Thank you.” She spoke as she looked down at the food in her hand. She wondered if he had just lied to her and this would kill her. Either way, she figured she was going to die in her near future anyway, so she had no qualms with eating the food. Plus, she was on the hungry side. Taking the fruit to her mouth, she took a bite. As the juice from the fruit flowed through her mouth, she brought her eyes back to the Predator who gave it to her. “This is pretty good, thanks again!” 

So far, she felt no effects of death upon her, figuring that it would have been instant and not grueling. If she could keep this up, she could live in this marketplace forever. Whenever someone asked where her Predator was, she could just point to a crowd and get free food. Turning around to see what else the marketplace had in store for her, Eris stopped in her tracks, dropping her Naxa on the floor. As she looked up, she saw a very green Crescent Predator in front of her. “You made me drop my Naxa.” She knew she bastardized that word, too. 

“What are you doing?” Tichinde looked down at her as she picked up the Naxa from the floor. She was calm and seemed very out of place emotionally than what she just was moments ago when she was still in the stadium. After winning the fight, he looked up at her to claim her as his prize and she was nowhere to be found. When he had gone looking for her, he noticed her talking to the Yautja who had given her the fruit. 

“I’m eating.” Eris took another bite from her Naxa. It had just hit the ground, but again she really wasn’t worried about it killing her since she figured, again, that that was happening shortly. “So, you won?”

“Did you give her this?” He looked over at the Yautja with the Naxa. He was missing a few cords from his head, not making direct eye contact with him, and slouching. He was definitely far from a warrior; it made sense that he was a fruit trader since he probably couldn’t do anything but scavenge. 

“Yes. I asked where her Yautja was and she pointed over to where D’lex is being sold. I figured she was a Blooded Yautja’s property, so I was acting accordingly.” He spoke with diverted eyes.

“She spoke to you?” Tichinde became even more confused.

“Yes. After she pointed over where the D’lex is, I asked if she wanted some Naxa. She asked me if it would cause her death and I told her no. So, she took it from me.” 

“Do you speak her language?” 

“No, she understood ours, which further led me to believe she is seasoned here.”

Tichinde looked at the other Yautja before looking back at the ooman. She had remembered words that he had spoken to her in his language, solidifying his choice in fighting for her. 

“So, you won?” Eris repeated herself as she finished the fruit. It was easing her stomach, but she was still nervous as to what was going to happen now that she had been fought for. 

“Yes.” Tichinde looked down at her, seeing her eyes begin to roam around with that curiosity. 

“So, I belong to you?” She knew she would never belong to someone, but in this case, he had full control over her future, so she needed to make a game plan. The Predators liked unpredictable and challenging, but she was uncertain how to be that. Hell, she was unsure how she was so calm right now. She had just watched her friends get taken away, and here she was eating Predator food. 

“I paid for you, so you are mine.” Grabbing her shoulder, he began to steer her away from the plant booth. As he walked his way through the marketplace, he made it back to where the ships were docked until he found his own craft. “My ship.” He spoke to her before typing in numbers on the awu’asa on his arm that linked to the ship. When he closed the piece on his arm after he finished, the door unlocked and began to extend a ramp to enter.

“This is yours?” Eris looked back up at him as she felt the pressure of his hand usher her onto the ship. Even though she was on one and already kind of used to it, this ship was unknown to her, so she literally had to be forced in. “I’ll take that as a yes.” She spoke again when she heard the door closing behind them, locking them into the ship. 

She began to feel her heart race once more at the sound of the door sealing. Last time it happened, it meant that she had just been taken from her planet. Now, it solidified that she was permanently separated from her friends and on her own, one on one with this Predator behind her.


	5. Chapter 5

As the door sealed shut, Eris couldn’t help but think about how used to the sound she had become. What was once a mysterious, eerie, futuristic sound was now an everyday occurrence. Looking around to see if this ship had any difference than the last, she frowned at the familiar metallic walls. This was a routine ship, as was the market place ship and original ship she came from. Whenever she thought about spaceships, back before knowing they were real, she had imagined them to be not as bland as the ones she had been in. Metallic this, metallic that… where was all the technology infused walls with random buttons that were blinking different colors that she couldn’t ever possibly begin to learn what they all did? That’s what her Sci-Fi brain knew then and this is what her reality brain knew now.

Another thing that Earth Sci-Fi had taught her was how aliens looked, which also could not have been more wrong. The creatures looked entirely different than what the movies and books portrayed them as: massive-eyed grey creatures with gigantic oval heads, long arms that branched out into long fingers, thin build who clearly didn’t know what a workout meant in their life. The people who wrote and directed those books and movies could not have been more wrong. These guys, in the words of Bobby Boucher from The Waterboy, were finely-tuned athletic machines! If she were to ever make it back to Earth, which she knew she wouldn’t, she was going to have to write a book about her experience and set the record straight. 

Out of all the things she had already experienced, which was way more than she ever thought she would, Eris wished she knew more about the being standing behind her. He towered over her. She could feel the heat of his breath radiate above her each time he exhaled, which was somehow warmer than the heat that already radiated throughout the ship. She wasn’t sure why everything had to be so warm, but she was starting to get used to that, too. 

Walking forward to see where she could explore, Eris felt a hand place itself on her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks. Lifting her head over her should and arching her neck upward, she looked at the creature standing behind her. “Is this going to be like the last ship where I am locked in a cage?” Eris couldn’t help but ask. If her life was just going to be from one cage to the next, she was ready to just call it quits now and bang her head against a wall until she was no longer conscious. 

“No.” Tichinde replied while looking down at the small ooman. He almost regretted his decision to keep her since he was about to embark on a hunt after a long season of selling oomans, but she was interesting and he knew it would take him another couple of decades before he would come across another like her again, if at all.   
The reason he was regretting his decision was because he had absolutely no place to put her, which he didn’t even realize until right about now. If he had a holding cell in his ship, she would have definitely been going into it. He didn’t have the means to keep her which meant he had to go get extra supplies to hold her over, he would also have to find a way to keep her contained while he was on a hunt so she didn’t destroy or mess up any of his things. Tichinde had seen what a female ooman could do when left alone and he wasn’t about to let that happen, but canceling his hunt was also out of the question. He would have to leave her here for a little bit by herself so he could get some supplies, and hopefully she wouldn’t mess anything up in that time. 

Being a Bad Blood, it wasn’t hard to get what he needed, but he never anticipated gathering materials for an ooman pet. Looking around at his ship, Tichinde began to look at what he could trade for much needed human equipment. If he wanted something of a higher grade, he would have to trade his valuable equipment from armor and weapons to rare materials from other worlds. 

“So then why are you stopping me from roaming?” Eris felt ballsy. In no way, shape, or form did she have a leg to stand on here, but that wasn’t about to stop Pike from taking the lead. 

Forcing a little bit of pressure onto the ooman’s shoulder, Tichinde began to lead her around the twists and turns of the ship until he made it to his sleeping quarters; it was the only room besides the entrance of his ship that locked. “You stay here.” He took his hand off of her shoulder before stepping out of the room.

“What do you mean ‘you stay here’?” Eris threw her hands up as she turned around to face the Yautja. “What am I supposed to do?” The thought of being alone was what started to make her adrenaline run. 

“The ship isn’t ready for someone like you on it. I need to get some things.” The Crescent-scarred Yautja spoke down to the little being in front of him. 

“Not ready? Meaning it’s not like the Slave ship I came in on?” She prodded.

“Exactly.” She was catching on quick, which meant less time having to explain. “Now, stay here.” He knew she didn’t have a choice in the matter. 

“You’ll be back though, right?” A lump formed in Eris’ throat as she could begin to feel her anxiety shifting upwards. She didn’t have a problem with being alone normally, but this was an entirely different situation than she was used to. Situations on Earth were predictable and she knew the outcome of most of them, but in a situation like this, anything could happen. He said he would be right back, but that didn’t mean that he would be. Instead, he could leave her in there to starve to death. 

“Yes.” Tichinde could see her facial expression change at the thought of him leaving her. He didn’t understand, this was an ooman who walked around a Bad Blood Yautja ship by herself without a care in the world yet struggled with being alone in the safety of his ship. He was confused, she was confusing, but that made it all the fun to learn her. If he could learn the most difficult of oomans, that would make his job much easier. 

The door shut and she was alone again. 

Taking in a deep breath and closing her eyes, Eris tried to focus on herself to calm down. She knew a panic attack was racing towards the surface and she wasn’t sure how she was going to deal with it. ‘What would Pike do?’ her thoughts tried to pull something familiar to be less scared. It didn’t help that her encroaching panic attack was stressing her out which only caused her to panic more. Fighting what wanted to burst out was a mental battle she was used to, but that didn’t make it any easier on her. ‘A box. I am trapped in a box. I can’t get out.’ Her thoughts continued to taunt her while she tried to keep her breathing steady. ‘You’re going to die in this box. Nothing will save you.’ Her knees bent as she fought to hold the tears that were forming in her eyes back. ‘You’re alone and trapped, this box will be your tomb. He’s never coming back. This is it.’ A few tears rolled down her cheeks while her thoughts began to battle with itself. 

‘But what’s in the box?’ Pike began to speak.

Opening her eyes, Eris looked at her surroundings which she hadn’t done before. Letting her legs bring herself back up in a full stand, she took her eyes off of the door that had previously shut, slowly looking towards her right. More metallic walls, but they seemed to be more rigid than the smooth ones in the hallways before the room. Her eyes stopped when she noticed something that resembled a beehive, but way bigger. An enclosed circular structure was in the corner of the room with a hole in the middle of it. It was a good-sized hole, maybe a four-foot radius all the way around with a block that seemed to step up to it. Stepping closer, Eris began to climb the block to look at what was inside of the hive-like structure. As her hands grabbed the edge of the hole that led into the mysterious complex, Eris took a deep breath before peering inside of it. Her eyes were amazed when she saw the contents inside.

“This must be where he sleeps.” She spoke out loud as she saw all sorts of different furs inside. Stripes, spots, mottled, calico, bold, light, dark, everything! Reaching her hand inside to touch the skins, she couldn’t help but try to touch all of them. The textures that she was feeling were unlike anything she had felt before. “How can this look so much like fur, but not feel a thing like it?” She flipped the skin over to see if it was, in fact, a hide. “Unbelievable!” She spoke once more. It was skin from an animal that she would never know or see. 

Climbing all the way into the hive, she felt her body sink down into the plush of the skins. “This is way better than my Tempurpedic ever was!” She closed her eyes as she rolled in the comfort. If this was where the Predator slept, she could definitely see why. It was better to think this is where he slept rather than where he kept his skins; that was a lot creepier of a thought. 

After embracing the comfort, Eris could feel her anxiety start to go away. Opening her eyes from the plush glory that were the skins, she felt herself sit up as she peered at the ceiling above her. A hushed ‘wow’ left her mouth as she stared up, her eyes darting from one side of the ceiling to the other. A glass ceiling revealed the stars that were above her. Her thoughts hushed as she continued to look at the beauty above her. The dark blues and blacks with beacons of yellow made her feel so small, but not in a bad way. She was experiencing something that only few were able to. Though she was taken from Earth and enslaved to a weird superior race, the view she was witnessing was beautiful. Laying there, she soaked up as much of it as she could before she wouldn’t be able to, just like her time with Cara and Alegra. A frown crept on her face as she continued to look into space- she missed her friends and hoped they were okay. 

_____

 

When the door shut, separating Tichinde from the ooman, he walked down the familiar halls until he was back outside in the Bad Blood Hub of a ship. He contemplated what he would need to secure this ooman in his ship without destroying all of his things. A cage was something that would take too much time and would delay his hunt, which he was already upset because that’s just what this whole ordeal was doing. 

Once he made it back into the epicenter of the ship’s main trading area, he moseyed on over to one of his well-known warriors that he met back on Ryushi where his whole Bad Blooded reputation began. Tichinde knew that this particular Yautja practiced in ooman keeping, always having a few in his ship with him for company, so he knew that he would be able to help out with his new companion.

“Vex’ira,” Tichinde spoke as he approached Vex’ira’s station. It was a nice sight to see a familiar face that knew all of his history. He knew his quirks, his demons, and how he functioned. If there was anyone who was even close to being his mei’hswei, this Yautja would be it. “I am in need of your services.”

“Long time no see, Tichinde. I hear you’ve taken an ooman.” Vex’ira stood up, meeting with his long-time friend. Their heights were almost the same, but he lingered just a bit above Tichinde.

“Word travels quick.” The Crescent Yautja darted his eyes to the two oomans that hid behind the station Vex’ira sat behind. 

“It travels more quickly because of who you beat to win the ooman.” His bright eyes followed Tichinde’s before he grunted, taking the Yautja’s eyes off of his ooman females. 

“I am not looking at your oomans as a prize,” Tichinde puffed his chest at the accusation. “I am looking at what they are equipped with.” He brought his gaze back to the females, noticing Vex’ira’s stance change in knowing he wasn’t challenging him for his pets. Studying the devices around their necks, he beckoned one to come over. The ooman female looked at Vex’ira before a nod of approval was made by her master, allowing her to nervously make her way to Tichinde. “Is this how you keep them in order?” His giant hand laced the metal device that loosely hung around the female’s neck.

“It is. Made from D’lex, I placed a gkinmara inside of it that I control with my wrist gauntlet. I can set it where they cannot come within a certain range of me, or I can make it where they cannot leave a certain range from me.” Vex’ira was proud of his device, speaking with a strong, baritone voice from within his chest. 

“A gkinmara? That’s smart of you.” He would have never thought to put a sensory device of that caliber in something that would contain a measly ooman. “Are you afraid they will kill you?” Tichinde responded, curious as to why there might be a setting to keep the ooman from reaching him.

“It’s so they don’t try anything while you’re asleep. Place your setting on how far you want them from you and sleep knowing they won’t try to use your weapons against you. You can also program it into your ships settings to keep them out of unwanted areas.” The slightly taller Yautja grabbed the shoulder of his ooman and ushered her back to the other female. 

“So, what can I trade you for one of these?” Tichinde was interested in what Vex’ira had to offer. The device could be programmed into his ship, and that’s exactly what he needed; it was far better than any cage he could build to contain her and would help with her quality of life, which from his job, he knew was very important to oomans. 

Vex’ira took a moment to think while he looked at Tichinde. Anything he might want, he was fully capable of getting himself. A lot of the Yautja on the ship who were not bringing back trade were lazy. If he wanted something, he would go get it, easy as that. This meant that Tichinde’s question was foreign to him. He knew that his comrade wasn’t lazy rather than ignorant when it came to the device that his services could offer. Tichinde himself didn’t make a product that only he knew the mechanics to, so it wouldn’t be a fair trade, if no trade at all. He had all the D’lex he needed: furs, weapons, armor, materials included. As he looked at his friend, he could only think of one thing he wanted for what he came to this ship to trade. “I want a favor.” 

Tichinde’s head tilted up a tad in surprise of what Vex’ira was requesting. He had everything to trade for and yet he wanted a favor? It was unusual, but he couldn’t think of a reason not to accept this deal. “And what favor would that be?” 

“I’ll get a hold of you when I am ready for your services.” Taking one of his hand-made devices out of the container he held them in, he handed it to the Crescent-scarred Yautja. “Are you going to take it?” He reached his hand out, offering it up to him.

Unsure of what kind of favor Vex’ira would ask in the future, whether it would be something he could comply with or not, he didn’t like being indebted to someone without knowing what the debt was. It was a surprise that could inconvenience him in the future. Looking down at the device Vex’ira was offering in his hand, Tichinde extended his arm to reach for it, clasping it with his giant claws before gripping it in his hands. “I accept.” He cocked his head to the side to return his sights on the Yautja in front of him. He had no idea what to expect, but he would comply when the time would come. 

Vex’ira’s mandibles began to click in amusement. He trusted Tichinde and knew he would be good for his word. Though Bad Blooded, they still had their own set of rules that certain Yautja went by, it was hard to completely escape a code that was embedded into their minds from such an early stage of life. “Very well.” He clicked his mandibles more before he began to explain to Tichinde how to sync the gkinmara to his wrist gauntlet and ship. 

When all was explained and there was a certainty in the new knowledge, Tichinde looked at Vex’ira one last time. “What makes you keep ooman females?” He had never asked before because he couldn’t understand it, but now that he had a peaked interest, he was curious on if it was the same. 

“I don’t have to compete with other males nor do I have to get more scars when mating with them.” Vex’ira’s tone was serious. He knew that it was an honor to mate with a Yautjan female, but it wasn’t engrained in his mind to follow those sets of rules. He wanted to do what he wanted and he wanted them to comply, which ooman females did very well. Even if they tried to claw for their life for him to stop, he was still able to easily outpower them, making in an easy and rewarding challenge. He liked to feel dominant, and these oomans gave him that feeling he so desperately needed. 

“No other reason?” Tichinde watched Vex’ira shake his head. He couldn’t believe the Yautja would rather take an ooman than an honored Yautjan female. There was something about conquering her, getting her approval, and proving that he was worthy. It was one of the most highly honorable wins he could ever engage in, and the trophy would be to impregnant her and have his spawn live on with his bloodlines. Oomans, on the other hand, would never have such glory in mating. “I do not want mind for breeding.” 

“You won’t regret it if you do.” The light-eyed creature replied, not taking any offense to what Tichinde had just said. With a nod of his head, he turned back to look at his two ooman females, jerking his head towards the back of him to signal that it was time to go. He had a long day of selling and it was about time to get out of the trading hub.

“You can’t speak to them?” The motioned piqued Tichinde’s interest.

“They don’t understand.”

“Mine was able to escape the battlegrounds and live among the Yautja for a little bit of time. Convinced a vendor that the Yautja she belonged to was a wealthy Bad Blood who required D’lex.” Tichinde watched as Vex’ira’s pupils widened before going back down to normal. He was interested, maybe that was information he shouldn’t have told him now that he was indebted to him.

“They can learn our language?” His head cocked to the side, awaiting a response.

“Even on the ship she was learning words here and there. She doesn’t know much, but she understands some.” Opening the palm of his hand to look at the collar device, Tichinde looked back over at Vex’ira before having to give out more information about his ooman. “I need to get back to see what damages have been done.” His mandibles clicked together in laughter as he gave Vex’ira one last nod before heading off to gather a few more things for the ooman. 

As he walked away, he could still feel Vex’ira’s eyes on his back. He knew he wanted to ask more, but that was all the information that he wanted to share, and more than he should of. It was apparent that his oomans were used for mating and not companionship. It was more uncommon to use them solely for companions anyway among the Bad Bloods and maybe that is why he was intrigued by her. He had never wanted to mate with an ooman, but this particular one sparked an interest that he had only seen a handful of time amongst oomans with other Yautjan masters. She was learning. She was understanding. She was willing. She was unafraid. 

Picking up a few more pounds of food, and grabbing more Naxa from the Yautja vendor that the ooman had encountered already, Tichinde made his way back to his ship. Upon entering, he had no idea what he was going to find in his quarters. There wasn’t much in there, but that didn’t mean she didn’t dent the walls or tear his skins apart.

As soon as he made it to the door that separated him and the female, he backed up and reversed his tracks, making his way to where he prepared and kept his food. He had been curious as to what happened in the door that he didn’t think about dropping off what he had traded for first. Once all of the food was placed in their homes, Tichinde brought the device over to where he controlled his ship, pressing a few buttons before taking the collar and syncing the devices with each other. He began to navigate through his ship where he wanted her to have access to and where he wanted to avoid. Following Vex’ira’s instructions as closely as he could, he finally synced the collar to his wrist gauntlet. The Gauntlet would be able to control where she went into the ship as well, but mainly it could keep her from running off from him or keeping her distance from him. She was new to this ship and he didn’t want her to try to use his weapons on her, or something of the caliber. He had no reason to believe she could kill him, but he wanted to relax in his ship and save all of the pent-up energy for his hunt. 

Grabbing the collar, he dropped it on the floor and began to mess with his wrist gauntlet to make sure it worked. Pressing a few buttons, the collar began to slide across the floor to the designated distance allowed to be near him. A satisfied huff escaped his throat as he pressed more buttons, only to see the collar slide a foot to him. Taking a step back, he watched the collar follow in suit, staying the max distance away from him that he allowed. Pleased, he turned the device settings off and began to head to his chambers. 

Opening the door, he looked around for a moment to see if she was hiding anywhere. There wasn’t much in his quarters so there wasn’t much to look behind, under, on top of, or around. Stepping closer to his bed, his dome cocked to the side a bit at the sight of the small ooman sleeping in his skins. She looked so small in his giant bed, sleeping hard. From the ooman spacecraft to this one, he figured that this was probably the best sleep she had in weeks. 

“Ooman.” Tichinde spoke to see if she would wake up. When nothing happened, he stepped off of the block and back onto the floor. Taking a closer look around the room, he noticed no damage done to it. Of all the random things she could have broken, tore apart, or damaged in any way, she didn’t. Relieved, Tichinde decided that he was not going to waste any more time connected to the trade hub ship. Making his way to the control room, he began to press what he needed to safely detach from the ship and make his way to the planet that he had been waiting to hunt on. 

Once detached and coordination’s set, he made one last trip to see if the noises and movement had woken the ooman up. Peering back once more inside, she was still completely out of it. Heading out of the room, he decided not to lock it behind him to keep her inside. So far, she had shown that she could be trusted not to do damage to anything in his ship so he would allow her to be able to come find him when she would awaken. Plus, it would be entertainment to see how she would react to his ship by herself. When he met her next, that’s when he would place the collar on her.

______

 

Eris began to come back to consciousness, feeling her mind awaken before opening her eyes. By feeling her surroundings, she could tell she was still in the bed of furs. ‘How long have I been in here? I feel like I’ve slept for an eternity; must have been needed. Oh God, if he isn’t back…’ Her thoughts began to process as she opened her eyes. A sigh of relief escaped her mouth as she saw the stars moving from up above her, which meant that he was back on the ship, driving it off to wherever. Or it meant that someone else was on the ship and hijacked it off to wherever. Either way, she was no longer alone on the ship. She wasn’t sure why she felt a weird feeling if the creature on the ship wasn’t the Crescent-scarred one, they were all one in the same. The only thing she could think of that would explain what she was feeling was the fact that he was oddly familiar. 

Slowly sitting up, she began to rub her eyes with a giant stretch to follow after. When her arms were satisfied with the stretch, Eris scooted towards the exit of the hive-bed, grabbing the edge of it to lift herself out and onto the block that helped her get inside. 

The room was still lit the same it was before, nothing changing in that aspect, but what she did notice was that the door that led into the room was open. Tip-toing her bare feet across the room to make it towards the door, Eris looked out into the foreign land that were hallways. It wasn’t eerily dark, no blinking red light illuminating the halls, but a rather semi-lit walkway. Shadows still loomed from what she could see, but it wasn’t dark enough that she would run into things or get lost. 

Her curiosity called out to her to exit the room and see what she could do. This was her first chance to freely roam a ship, besides the short-lived adventure in the market, and she wanted to take it. Another part of her wanted to stay in the room and wait for the big beast to come fetch her. That was the difference between Eris and Pike.   
‘Once in a lifetime moment here, get to it!’ Pike spoke through her thoughts.  
‘But I could get in trouble and die.’ Eris retorted to her counterpart.

‘You’re going to die anyway, might as well stop proceeding with caution.’ 

‘But if I proceed with caution, I could live longer.’ Inner battles with Pike had become the usual. On Earth, Pike would come out whenever she needed to stand up for herself or someone else. This situation, though, couldn’t be more different than that. It was something she wasn’t use to.

‘These creatures don’t seem to like the proceeding with caution type. Just go for it, the worst that can happen is a slap on the wrist or a slit to the neck.’ 

‘Not helping!’ Eris proceeded to peer out of the room she was in and into the abyss of the hallway. She wanted to see what was there.

‘If Lechuga-Cabesa didn’t want you to roam, he wouldn’t have opened the door.’ Pike made a decent point.

‘Or he could be testing me.’ 

‘And what if the test was to see if he wasted his time on someone who had no sense of adventure?’ 

Eris stood there for a moment longer. It was true, nothing bad had happened when she left the ass-beating club. If anything, he seemed to not even care that she had wondered off and seemed to be more enthused about her actions. Taking in a deep breath, Eris let Pike take the lead on this one as she began to walk out of the door, still on the top pads of her feet. 

The warm metal beneath her feet was comforting with each step that she took forward. Trying her best not to make any sound, she made sure to pause after each step, listening to see if she could sense where the Predator was located. She felt entirely paranoid the whole time she lingered throughout the ship. The twists and turns confused her and she had gone down so many hallways that she wasn’t sure if she would be able to find the comfort of the hive-bed once more. 

Continuing on her eerie adventure, Eris stopped when she noticed a large opening coming up. ‘He’s gotta be in there.’ She figured while she forced herself to continue her footing towards the giant archway. Once under it, the room seemed to expand so far that she didn’t even know that the ship she was on had the capacity to hold such a place. The entire wall in front of her was made of glass, bowing out as an arch instead of a flat, rectangular wall. In the middle of the arch was a raised seat with what looked to be a panel in front of it. Taking a few steps to the side, Eris tried to see if the being was in the chair. ‘If not here, then where?’ 

Her motions became quick as she began to use her whole foot to walk. Climbing the steps that led to the seat, she flipped it around to sit in it. She didn’t have plans on touching anything, but she was looking a fricken alien ship! This was probably the only time she’d get to do this, and man was she going to observe. 

Spinning the chair back to look at the panel of levers and buttons, she slowly trailed her eyes over each one. It was amazing that all of these hundreds of little lights signified something for this ship. Taking her eye from the panel, she looked up to see what was beyond the glass. It was simply amazing to see. Moving the chair all the way to one side so she could slowly turn it to meet the other side of the room, she couldn’t begin to describe what a creepy beauty she was witnessing. It was beautiful because of all the shapes, colors, and formations of everything. What creeped her out and put a sour taste in her mouth was the fact that she was positive that nothing she was looking at was Earth. 

Shaking her head from her thoughts, she brought her eyes back down to the panel. Gently lifting her hand, she began to lightly trade her fingertips over some of the buttons from the top of the panel to the bottom. When a loud sound echoed throughout the walls from behind her, she quickly retracted her hand, bringing it back to her chest as she twisted the spinning chair around to look into the darkness of the hallway. 

Slowly stepping down from the steps, Eris tip-toed to the corner of the room, away from the giant archway that led into it. After moments of waiting, she was surprised when no one came into the room. Slowly making her way towards the entrance, she let her head tilt to the side to see if she could see the creature looming about. 

Nothing.

A feeling of relief crept over her, allowing her body to ease once more. Gathering herself up to stand straight, she paused when she felt a couple strands of hair breeze past her vision. Turning her head behind her, she could see the creature standing behind her. Turning completely around to look at him before backing away, Eris thought her heart was about to jump out of her chest. Her eyes grew wide at the thought of how exactly he got behind her. The only way into this place was the archway and she didn’t see him enter, so how long was he behind her?

Tichinde began to click his mandibles together at the sight of the frightened ooman in front of him. He was surprised she didn’t react more hastily to get out of the room. Stepping closer towards her, he extended his hand to her, curious as to what she would do with it.

Eris flinched before staring at the hand in front of her. She had no idea what it meant. Did he want her to shake it? Did he want her to hand something over? Was she supposed to put her own neck into it? She had absolutely no clue. “What do you want me to do?” She finally asked, not wanting to touch the creature, which is the only thing she could do since she had nothing but her tunic to give to him.

“Come here.” His baritone voice vibrated throughout the air.

“Why?” Eris hadn’t realized that she asked her question while obeying it in the process. 

Grabbing her shoulder, Tichinde turned the ooman around before placing the loose collar around her neck. “So I can give you this.”

As soon as she realized what just happened, Eris brought her hands to her neck to inspect the durability of the thing around it. “What is this?” She tried to sound calm, not liking the fact that she had just been branded as a pet. She was surprised there wasn’t a nametag on it, dangling in the front like a dog collar.

“It’s to keep you in your place.” He watched as the ooman turned back around to face him, her eyes had completely changed.

“So then tell me the rules. I don’t need to wear this.” Eris placed her arms in front of her chest, already knowing she wasn’t about to be able to take the device off. 

“It does more than that.” Tichinde watched a brow of hers lift.

“Then what does it do?”

Bringing his hand up to his wrist gauntlet, Tichinde put in the combination needed to activate the collar around her neck, which would prevent her from getting too far away from him. “Try to leave the room.”

“What do yo—”

“Try to leave the room.” Tichinde cut her off and repeated.

Looking strangely at the Predator, Eris slowly began to back up to the archway, taking her feet one at a time to leave. After a couple of steps, she noticed her collar hold still in the air as she continued to try to leave. Peeking her head back inside the room to look at the Predator, she felt the collar drop around her neck again. Slowly bringing her head back outside of the room, she felt the collar catch once more. 

“What the fuck is this?” Eris fully walked backed into the room, throwing her hands in the air before they taped the sides of her legs. “I am on a fucking ship with you, you really need to keep me closer? What do you think I am going to do, hide from you?”

“It was very easy to hunt you, I am not worried about you hiding form me.” Tichinde referred to the events that had just taken place. He had been in his chambers the whole time when he heard the girl awaken, putting his helmet on to activate his cloaking device so he could see what she would do. 

He found it amusing that she waited at the doorway for so long before finally stepping out of it, watching her footprints leave heat marks on the floor before fading away. He followed her into the control room before making noise so she wouldn’t touch any of the buttons on the panel. When she had scurried to the corner, he followed suit, uncloaking himself as soon as she poked her head around the corner to see if that’s where he was. 

“Easy to hunt me? Is that what you were doing?” Her throat sank into her stomach to think that he had been hunting her on the ship, tracking her every movement and she had no idea. There was the paranoia in being caught and that eyes were all on her, but that was normal. Hell, she got that feeling all the time back on Earth when she was roaming outside in a creepy place, though no one was there to watch. “Well, maybe if you took that helmet off and stopped cheating then I’d be better of an opponent.”

“Opponent?” Tichinde was intrigued by her proposal. Placing his hand on the side of his helmet, he pressed its release button, slowly taking it off to reveal his face to her once more. “I accept your challenge.” 

“Wait, excuse me, what?!” The pupils in her eyes dilated at the thought of what situation had just taken place.

“I will keep my helmet off and I will hunt you.” It didn’t matter that in a few days he would be hunting actual prey, but this would be a fun situation to pass the time. 

Was her heart even beating anymore? Eris brought her hand to the soft of her throat to see if she could feel the beating of it. Rapid heartbeats met her finger as she looked up at the creature who was suggesting they play a game of hide and seek. “Oh yeah, a skilled hunter who captures humans for a living versus a human who has never been hunted. I’ve read The Most Dangerous Game, but I never thought I’d act it out.” She tried to pace back and forth, but became increasingly annoyed when she hit the spot where the collar stopped her. “Okay, I get it, can you please undo the collar barrier please?” 

“You suggested this game, and I wish to accept.” He was amused by her panic.

“But, like, what is the end goal? Do I have to get from one ship to the other, because you’re just going to guard the end goal and I am going to shit myself the whole way there.” She sarcastically spoke, relieved that the Predator had taken off the setting so she could pace in peace. 

“You survive for a certain amount of time. If I find you, I win.” The Crescent-scarred Yautja continued to watch her pace back and forth, “And if you win, then you have the rights to say you’ve evaded a Bad Blooded Yautja.”

“Bad Blooded Yautja?” She bastardized the language once more. She knew what Bad Blood meant, but did this mean that they were the misfits of their race and there were other, normal Yautja out there. These were the bank robbers while the non-corrupted cops were still out there? “Did it used to be mad love until you took a look at what you’ve done and now, you’re a Bad Blood?” Her sarcasm through some Taylor Swift into the mix, which brought a smile to her brain. The thought of being able to say that she had outsmarted the species was an actual intriguing thought. If she could make this a steady game, that meant that she could learn how to control her nerves around him. She would no longer feel like she was being watched because she would gain the knowledge on actually being watched versus paranoia. Then, she could learn how he hunted, how his species hunted. 

“What?” Tichinde couldn’t even begin to put the sentence she just said together. He had been around oomans a lot, but had never heard something like that. 

“Nothing.” She put her hands across her chest once more. “Okay, we can hunt. The thought scares the absolute crap out of me, but I see some benefits in it for me since this is going to be my life now. But, can we make some ground rules?” 

It would be an understatement if Tichinde said he was excited about her compliance to the game. “What kind of rules?” He was curious.

“I can do what I want, hide where I want, and move to wherever I want,” She saw him about to protest, “But I wont use anything as a weapon, break anything, or touch any sort of controls.” His body language changed. “You can’t wear your mask since I think that is cheating. I am a beginner and I am not ready for your invisible ass following me. We can do that when I have leveled up. But mainly, please, no jump scares. If you find me, you find me. Please don’t pop out of the ceiling and scare the hell out of me; I am not ready for that either.”

Looking down at the girl, Tichinde could get behind what she was saying. It made him happy that she would want to play the game in the future with more challenges to her. 

“Oh, and we start out with a small timer. If I last 5 minutes, then we make it 6. After I survive 6, we can make it 7. So on and so forth.” 

“Alright, I accept your terms. But once we make it to a human 20-minute mark, I can use my helmet. I won’t use it to track your heat, just for cloaking.” 

“You can heat sense me with that thing?!” Eris was under the impression that he could just use it as a cloaking device. She had no idea that heat seeking vision came with it. She wondered what else it could do.

“Do you accept?” He bypassed her revelation.

“Yes. One question, though. Where do we start from? Opposite sides of the ship?” Her body was shaking from the nervousness of the game. She was allowing a Predator to hunt her. If it wasn’t giving her skills in return, she wouldn’t have accepted it. She knew she would never be able to take a Predator down, or even ever kill one, so hide and seek was the closest thing she would ever get with evading one, given they don’t have their helmets on ‘heat seeking’ mode. 

“Sounds fair. We start now. It takes me a couple moments to make it to the other side of the ship. Once I am there, I’ll give you an ooman minute to hide. Once the minute is up, I will yell a battle cry so you know I am hunting. Once I begin, I will start the timer. If it goes off before I find you, I will signal a call of defeat so you can come out.” He was already halfway down the archway when he finished his sentence. “And we can smell fear.” He turned the corner, completely away from her. 

“Fucking shit, of course they can smell fear. I’m about to die.” Eris watched him turn the corner before she began to run on the front pads of her feet through the hallways, seeing where Tichinde had gone and determined to go the other way. She wasn’t sure how much longer he had until he got to the other side of the ship, but she knew she needed to hide fast. Or would she need to hide and move once he passed the area? She had no idea what she was going to do.

Peering into each room as she ran by it, she could feel that her body was scared. ‘If they can smell fear, then I might as well spread my fear in as many rooms as I can.’ She quickly scurried throughout the rooms to put as much of her fearful scent into it, staying in rooms longer than others to increase the scent before running off. Tearing down the hallways, she made sure to go through the hallway that Tichinde had gone through so he thought she was somewhere down there. Or, maybe she should be. 

A terror filled roar echoed through the walls.

‘Holy shit…. What am I doing? I am going to die…” She could feel the bass of his roar vibrate her body, shaking from her head to her toes. ‘Fuck, and now most of my terror scent is in this room.’ She scurried back to the archway room, poking using the reflection of the glass that exposed space to her advantage. When she saw the giant beast smell the air, he turned the other way to check the rooms. ‘Thank god.’ Eris thought to herself. ‘Now all I have to do is make my legs work so I can move down that hallways he just came from.’  
Quickly gliding across the floor to make no sounds, Eris practically had a heart attack when she was at the hallway the Predator just came from. He was so close, she didn’t know if he had heard her or not. Was the Helmet the source of their hunting abilities, or could they hear really well and feel vibrations on their feet from her movements? It didn’t matter at this point. She continued on down the hall, peeking behind her to make sure she didn’t seem him sneaking up on her. 

Just in case he caught on and began to follow down the hallway, she went into different, random rooms to leave her scent there before exiting and finding somewhere else to be. It wasn’t until she found a room full of heads that she stopped. 

‘What is all of this?’ There were heads all over the wall of animals that she had never seen before. Some of them matched the skins that’s he previously slept on, which she thought it was cool that was able to put in image to the skin. There were giant heads, small ones, and even a couple human skull which didn’t sit right with her. Maybe he was like an Earth hunter who liked to display all of his proudest kills. But if that were the case, why were there human skulls? 

Shaking her head, she had to get back into the mindset that she was being hunted. Looking to the left of the displays, she noticed a small looking cabinet, that if empty, she could fit into. Gingerly walking towards it, she tried to figure out how to open it up. Nothing she did seemed to work, but she was determined. She had no idea how much time she had left, which meant she could have only been doing this for 30 seconds. 

Trying to open the box, Eris felt the collar begin to gently tug her the opposite way she was facing. Stepping backwards to obey the sensations in her neck, she was met with the image of the Predator. He had activated the setting, making the collar bring her to him. 

“You did well.” Tichinde was please as he watched the ooman walk over to him, fear not seeming to be in her eyes nor in her scent any longer. 

“Thank you for keeping your word and not scaring me.” Eris was annoyed at the collar guiding her to him, but it was a lot better than him coming out of nowhere and touching her. “How long did I have left before I would have won?” 

“One ooman second.” 

“Are you serious?!” Though she was only a second away from winning, she took it as a huge accomplishment that she made it that long evading a Predator. Hell, small steps baby! “I was only a second away from winning, that’s awesome!” Her cheeks rose upwards to her eyes while looking up at the beast. “I can’t believe it, I am so happy!” 

He observed her, never in his life seeing a captured ooman act this happy around him in his life. He knew that her showing her teeth wasn’t a challenge, but an ooman trait they did when they were pleased. “Tichinde.” 

Eris’s brow rose as he spoke, uncertain what he was saying to her. “Tichinde?” 

“My name.” 

“Oh,” This was the first time she was humanizing him. Now he had a name, which felt oddly comforting to know. “Pike.” She replied the same, no extended handshake or anything, just her name. She wasn’t ready to tell him her real name, if at all. 

“Pike.” Tichinde wasn’t sure if he had ever bothered to learn an oomans name, and if he had, it wasn’t because he asked for it. She was something different, something he never though an ooman could be. She was an emotional wreck, not knowing if she was going to be normal or bursting with anger, but entertaining through it all. “Shall we try this again?” He brought his hand back up to take the distance settings off of the gkinmara that was in her collar.

“Yes. Stay here and I will go hide.” Her nerves were back, but nothing like the first game. He had gained a little bit of trust with her by not scaring the absolute shit out of her. That didn’t mean that having a billion-pound, tree built, annihilator hunting her wasn’t still scary as hell.

“I’ll be seeing you soon, then.” Tichinde activated the minute timer on her wrist gauntlet.

“Hopefully not too soon.”


	6. Chapter 6

A yawn escaped Eris’ mouth as her arms raised above her to stretch. She didn’t know what the animals she had been laying on all this time were, but they had given her the best sleep of her life. The fur that was most comfortable to her was a grey color with purple hues to it. She had to remember to ask Tichinde what animal this was and if he could gather more of them. Rolling around the furs, she didn’t want to get up.

It had been a couple of weeks since Eris first boarded Tichinde’s ship. In that time, she was surprised at how comfortable she had become after the shock of it all had subsided. It was a unique experience to be hunted by a Predator for hours on end every single day, but it had helped her learn a lot about them. They were definitely a superior species, in technique and technology. The way he was able to hunt her was absolutely terrifying and amazing all in one. The amazing part being that he didn’t end up killing her at the end of the hunt.

It taught her a lot about herself, too. She was able to adapt to her new environment in ways she never imagined possible. Eris knew that when she left Nolan and became homeless she had adapted pretty well, but never thought that this would be on the spectrum of possibilities.

Her nervousness around Tichinde grew smaller by the day, too. She wasn’t sure if it was because she knew he wasn’t going to harm her or if she was truly getting used to being hunted. They hadn’t gotten to the point where he could use his mask yet, and she was honestly dreading that, but she was improving on all levels.

To think that she could actually go 20 minutes without being detected by Tichinde would be a huge accomplishment that she really wanted to achieve, but knowing that would mean he could use his helmet and go invisible was terrifying. Right now, she could see where he was and choose which path to take from there to evade him. Not knowing where he was was a completely different ballgame. On one hand, she would be able to sense him with more than just her sight which would be a pretty cool trick. On the other hand, though, she would be on edge the whole time and the thought of him being down a hallway just watching her was a terrible thought. What if he just stood there and let her run into him? She would absolutely die.

Besides getting used to the hunting matches, there was a whole lot of other stuff that Eris had to get used to. For one, their bathrooms were nothing like she was used to. On the slave ship, she had a human looking bathroom where she could do her business in peace. An actual Predator bathroom was quite the sight. Being homeless, she was used to doing what she had to do, but there was something unnatural about the alien bathroom. Honestly, it was just a hole in the ground which wasn’t a big deal, but it was still pretty unnatural for her. She remembered asking to use it for the first time and what her face must have looked like when she was looking straight into the depths of the unknown beneath her. Fortunately for her, she was used to the whole process now.

Customs played a big part in the unnaturalness she felt in the ship. Where she went to use the bathroom and where she showered were in completely different sectors of the ship. The showers though: amazing! It was like one of those fancy waterfall showers back on Earth, but way better. The pressure of the water falling down on her with its heavy weight was satisfying to say the least. The tile on the floor was gritty, which sounded horrible but was actually pretty nice. It kept her from falling over and didn’t stab into her skin at all.  
The weird oils that she used to wash herself were foreign, too, but she had never had softer skin in her life. The subtle bumps on her face were no longer there, completely free from any blemishes that she could tell of since there were no mirrors on the ship. She had never had softer hair, either. It had grown back some, no more than an inch or so, and felt healthier than back on Earth. Whatever these Predator creatures gathered to make such cleaning oils would sell for a pretty penny back home. For looking like such monstrous creatures, they were serious about their hygiene.

The biggest thing that Eris had to get used to was eating. Never in her life did she have problems eating food at all, even being homeless she ate some pretty questionable things, but this ship was different. The so called ‘kitchen’ consisted of an island counter that was just about as tall as she was. Stretching out beyond the length of her body, Eris knew that this counter had to be bigger than the cell she was kept in with two other women. The size made sense when Tichinde brought out a foreign animal the size of a grizzly bear to butcher it. Where he got the animal you ask? In a living room sized walk in freezer. He would walk in there, look through the animals as if he were to be picking out a shirt, grab it and slap it on the table before slicing it to pieces. The creatures that she had seen so far baffled her, the thought that they would soon be in her stomach didn’t quite sit right.

Now, Eris had no problem with people who went hunting, but the way he kept them was pretty weird. She had to keep telling herself it was just a huge freezer, but it just reminded her that he was a brutal killing machine with a death fridge full of variously sized monstrosities. She had seen what was in that freezer and couldn’t even begin to fathom having hunted those creatures. They varied in shape, size, texture, color, everything. They had no skin, which only made her wonder if she was sleeping on them in the hive-like bed. But the fact that he had killed them all was intimidating.

Once Tichinde had cut the animal to pieces, throwing away the parts that weren’t meant for eating, he would ignite a stove-like counter top and begin to cook his meat. Eris was surprised when she saw him whip out what looked to be spices as if he were a huge Martha Stewart preparing a delicious roast. She had never in her life imagined an alien creature cooking, but if she had, it wouldn’t have been like this.

Her first meal was interesting. After seeing what the creature had looked like before, minus the skin, she had absolutely no interest in eating it. Watching Tichinde butcher it, cook it, and serve it to her really didn’t sit right with her. Normally, she would eat what was presented in front of her out of courtesy for the host, but not the blue-black slab of whatever the fuck that was in front of her. She would look over at Tichinde eating his with no problem, but all Eris could think of was how much she wanted that Naxa from the station. After getting a pretty intense glare from Tichinde, she finally took a bite and realized that it was probably the best meat-like substance she had ever tasted.

Now, this whole life was becoming normal to her. She was used to the way she had lived for a couple of weeks and realized that this life wasn’t half bad. Sure, she was practically a slave, but she didn’t feel like one. The only thing she was nervous about now was a planet that they would soon be landing on. Tichinde had talked about hunting and getting more meat for his freezer, which made her nervous. Would that mean she would have to stay on the ship by herself while he went off and killed things? What if he were to die? She wasn’t ready to just die in space all helpless and such.

Lifting the upper half of her body from the skins she was buried in, she arched her neck upward to look into space. It was all out of her control and there was nothing she could do about it. Continuing to make the rest of her body get out of the bed, she was relieved that their sleep schedules were the complete opposite of each other. If it was up to sleeping on the floor or sleeping in the same bed with him, she would take the former. She wasn’t disgusted with him or anything, the concept was just way out of her comfort zone.

Stepping out of the hive-like bed, Eris made her way through the hallways to the archway where she figured Tichinde would be since they were closing in on their new planet adventure. What was once a maze was now familiar ground for her as she easily made her way to the control room. As she passed the arch, she looked up to see Tichinde sitting in the control chair. Pressing button after button as he looked at the glass window where a galactic map stretched across, he seemed very focused on what he was doing.

“Are we almost there?” Eris asked softly, stepping closer to stand right next to the raised panel. She watched as the galactic map changed, zooming in on certain areas before zooming back out and repeating the process; the clicks from Tichinde matching the maps movement rhythm.

“Yes,” Tichinde took his eyes off of the map to look down at the ooman. He was surprised with her, not knowing that he could ever have this kind of a relationship with her kind. When they were back at the Bad Blood Community Ship and he was auctioning her off, he wondered if he was going to regret his decision later on when he had decided to fight for her. He was pleased that he hadn’t. “About an ooman hour.”

“So, we have time to play a game of cat and mouse?” Taking her eyes off of the map, she looked up at Tichinde, who she caught looking at her.

Tichinde let out a laugh. He had never imagined that an ooman would ever ask him to hunt her, but here she was, wanting to play what she referred to as ‘cat and mouse’. Pushing a couple more buttons to solidify their travels, Tichinde stood and left the room.

“Is it safe to take your silence as a yes?” Eris yelled after him, a laughing tone in her voice. He had a habit of just laughing at her and then leaving whenever she asked to play the game. She was surprised herself that she enjoyed it so much. The more she learned to evade the Predator, the more power she felt she would have under her belt. So far, Tichinde treated her with respect, but she didn’t know if that would change or if something weird were to happen. He was a Bad Blood after all, which in human terms was a criminal. And who better to hunt a criminal than the police. Would that mean she was like his cocaine or something? Would she be taken into an evidence locker to just sit there the rest of her life for being illegal?

Shaking her thoughts from her head, Eris made her way down the twists and turns to find a room to start in. Once Tichinde’s roar filled the hallway, she knew the game was on. She remembered him saying that they could smell fear, which no longer scared her because she wasn’t scared of him anymore. Tip-toeing down the corridors to make her way through the ship, she kept her ears open to try to pinpoint where he was.

He was a stealthy creature so she had to stay hidden most of the time. She would hide behind a door frame or object until she could see where he was. A shadow, arm, foot, back, anything that would give her the ability to plan her next move. It was scarier when she didn’t know where he was than when she did. When she could see him, she could just keep following him and stay hidden until the time was over or go the opposite direction. When she couldn’t see him, she had no plans.

Catching a glimpse of him, Eris quietly entered the ‘kitchen’ area, ducking behind the island counter. Poking her head out from the corner of the island, she waited until she saw his foot pass the entrance of the room. Bringing her head back in slightly, she waited to see which direction he was going in so she could go the opposite.

Watching him from the counter, she couldn’t even hear his movements. It was hard to believe that a creature that massive would leave no sound. Slowly taking her head all the way back, she began to slide to the other side of the counter. Peeking her head around it, she could see Tichinde’s back moving away from her. As he walked towards one of the cabinets from across the room, Eris’ breathing stopped when he did. As he quickly turned his head around, Eris brought her face back behind the counter. The sight of him whipping his dreads around, slapping his back with such force to try to sense where she was located was terrifying.

“Shit, he can smell fear and I just about lost it.” She thought to herself as she went back to the other side of the counter, knowing all too well that he was heading towards where she was. Right when he was about to turn the corner to see where she was, she slipped passed the corner she once looked from and to a new side of the counter. His slow footsteps sent vibrations through the floor, helping her know how close he was before she had to turn another corner. She knew that he knew she was close.

As they played a merry-go-round game with the island counter, Eris knew she was going to be found soon. Trying to slow her heart while she continued to move around corners quietly, she noticed a small piece of bone on the floor. Grabbing it, she threw it across the room in hopes to distract the Predator. A quiet sigh of relief left her mouth when she heard him scurry to it. Taking the only chance she’d get, Eris quickly got out of the room.

Tip-toeing through the halls, she knew she had to form a plan now. Going into the shower room, Eris turned on the water to distract Tichinde into coming that way. Once the knob was turned, she began to make her way through conjoining rooms back to where she started. She could hear the water running from where she was and was happy to hear it shut off. Now she knew where he was.

Feeling like she had the upper hand, Eris relaxed a bit. Making her way back to the archway, she knew that at any moment he would call it and she will have won. She was only at the 14-minute mark in their agreement to go minute by minute and she knew that it had to be close. Waiting it out in the control room a roar finally filled the hallways. She had won and was now on to the 15-minute mark.

“I’m in the control room!” She yelled, making sure he could hear her throughout the hallways. When Tichinde entered the room, Eris couldn’t help but give him a big, cheesy smile. “I got you.”

“You’re learning.” Tichinde looked at Pike who was sitting next to the control panel. This was the first time she had used distractions. She was learning, which meant that their hunts were about to become more interesting. He wished that the hunt continued until he found her, but this way was best for her. If he played it his way, he didn’t think that she would be willing to play it anymore since she would never get to win and have the satisfaction in trying again. With a win, he could see that she had fun and was more willing to keep it going. He was now able to hunt her longer, and she was willing to do multiple rounds in a row which kept his interest. It was a shame they couldn’t play another right now.

“I thought you were going to find me at that counter.” Just thinking about it made her adrenaline start again.

“I could smell you for a moment, but then you threw that bone. Smart move.” He was genuinely surprised that she was able to think on her feet. She knew he was closing in on her, so she acted fast with her surroundings.

“Yep, then the shower!” She was so proud of herself.

“Next time, don’t waste the water. Why the shower anyway?” He wasn’t angry at her for wasting some of their water supply since they were about to be able to replenish.

“So I knew where you were in the ship since I knew you’d turn it off. Sorry about that, you talked about filling it back up on this planet, so I thought it would be fine.” Eris knew that the water supply was limited so he would have to shut it off.

“Like I said, you’re learning.” Tichinde made his way back into the control chair, bringing the map back up to see how close they were. “We are almost there.”

“Tichinde,” Eris kept her eyes on the map on the glass, “What will I do when we’re there?” This was the time to try to figure out what was about to happen.

“You’ll stay in the ship.” Tichinde could hear the worry in her voice. He wasn’t sure why oomans worried so much.

“So, I will be in the ship while you go hunting?” She clarified.

“Yes.” A quick reply.

“How long will you be gone for?” She was gauging how long she had to be alone.

“A couple of ooman days.”

“Will the ship be on the planet or in space?”

“On the planet.” Tichinde didn’t know where this was going.

“What if one of those monsters you’re hunting breaks into the ship?” Eris felt like her concern was valid. If a monster broke into the ship, she’d have no way in defending herself from it and the only thing that could save her would be far away.

Tichinde could understand why she was paranoid, but he’d never let something infiltrate his ship. “The creatures on this planet don’t have the power to do that. I am not hunting for sport, I am hunting for food which means the prey is a lot weaker.”

“So there is no way you can die?” Eris brought her right hand to her left elbow, playing with it as she waited for his answer.

“No, I will not be dying on this planet.” It was moments like this that reminded Tichinde that oomans were fragile little creatures. If he were to die, he knew she would not be able to navigate the ship in any way, shape, or form. If she couldn’t figure out how to open the door exiting the ship, she would be trapped inside until her dying breath.

He knew that she relied on him for her survival now. It was the responsibility that he took on when he went to battle for her. He knew that he would be her caretaker, making sure she had all of the essentials to stay alive. It would have been easier to just be alone and not have to deal with the emotions that oomans brought to the table, but he honestly didn’t mind it. It was oddly satisfying to have this little creature rely on him so much. If he died, she would be screwed and she was fully aware of it. She wasn’t acting like a lot of oomans he had encountered with other Bad Bloods who tried to escape at every cost. They were constantly trying to escape their Yautja masters and get away. If they were to ever escape, though, they would die shortly after. There was no way an ooman female, or male for that matter, would be able to survive in this realm.

“You promise?” Eris brought her eyes to look up at Tichinde in the chair. She didn’t want to be alone and even though he claimed that he wasn’t going to die, she wasn’t sure of that. He was a superior being, yes, but she didn’t know what he was going up against. All of the bodies she had seen in the freezer seemed like worthy foe for Tichinde, not some walk in the park.

Tichinde brought his eyes down to look at the female below him. He knew that ‘Promise’ was an ooman custom in asking the other party to keep their word. He didn’t fully understand why she was asking him to keep his word since there was absolutely no way he was going to die on the planet, but if it would make her feel better, he would agree. “Promise.”

A small smile formed on Eris’ face as she took her eyes off of Tichinde. She was comforted that he promised he wouldn’t go off and die, but she still had an uneasy feeling. She hadn’t been alone since being sold off to the Predators, and even then it was only for a short time, she wasn’t looking forward to days on end. “Whoa,” without even thinking about it, her legs made her stand up. “Is that the planet?”

In front of her was a giant orb that grew bigger by the minute as they closed in on it. Besides more of an orange color, the scheme was similar to that of Earth. She could see where the lands broke up by what she assumed to be water. As they continued on, it wasn’t long until they entered the planet’s atmosphere and landed on the ground.

“This looks like a pretty creepy jungle.” The feeling in her stomach wasn’t any better once she saw what the planet looked like. Landing in an open area, what seemed to be a forest was all Eris could see in front of her. A light fog danced in between what looked to be haunted trees in a haunted forest with creepy looking branches that stretched out unnaturally across the sky above. She was back to feeling like Tichinde would absolutely die here, resulting in her death as well.

“There is nothing to be afraid of.” Tichinde stood up from the control chair as he made his way to the exit of the ship. “There is plenty of food and water to last you until I get back.”

“What?” Eris quickly turned around and ran to catch up to Tichinde, stopping herself right in front of him. “You’re leaving right now?” She couldn’t believe that they had just landed and he was already prepared to leave her. Did he not take a backpack or something with supplies?

“The sooner I leave, the sooner I return.” Tichinde looked down at the female, noting the concerned look on her face and not being entirely sure why it was there.

“But we just landed. Aren’t you going to go get some supplies to take with you?” She folded her arms in front of her chest.

“The only supplies I need are in my gauntlet and mask.” One of his mandibles twitched at her actions, amused in whatever she was doing. She stood in front of him like she intended to stop him from going which he found comical.

“Well what about food?” She couldn’t believe all he needed was just his hands and whatever he already had on him. It was so foreign. Everyone else she had seen who went on a hunting trip had some sort of equipment, not just a loin cloth and fishnet, this wasn’t a goddamn rave!

“I am going on a hunt, that will be my food supply.” Tichinde folded his arms in turn, waiting to see what else she had to say.

She narrowed her eyes at him, he was leaving now and there was nothing she could do about it. He was just going to go be gothic George of the Jungle in the haunted forest of death while she waited for days by herself in the ship. “Fine.” She let her body shift to the side, opening up the hallway to him to pass through.

Unfolding his arms, Tichinde made his way to the exit of the ship, grabbing his helmet that he had set down before they played their game in the process. Pressing a numerical sequence so the door would open, he turned around to look back at the ooman who remained where she had stepped aside. “I’ll be back in a couple of days. You will be fine.” Leaving the ship, he typed in another sequence to close the door, keeping his sights on her until it was all the way shut.

“Fucking better.” Eris let her back hit the cold metal behind her, arms still crossed. She had no idea what she was going to do for a couple of days. Did his couple mean 2 days like Earth or did it mean a couple of weeks?

“This really isn’t the time to freak out about this.” Pike popped up into her head.

“Yeah, well what the hell am I going to do if he dies?” Eris began to talk to herself as she took her back away from the wall and returned to control room to see more of the planet they were on. This was going to be her view for a couple of days, might as well get used to it.

“He’s not going to die, and if he did, you can handle yourself. You’re on a spaceship with a steady supply of water. If he dies, you’ll just get one of his alien weapons and kill whatever is out there for food and bring it back to the ship.”

“HA! Like I could really do something like that! You’ve got to be kidding me.” She looked out into the haunted forest. “There is no way I can go out there.”

“There was no way Nolan would ever hit you. No way you would ever be able to survive being homeless. There was also no way you could get abducted by aliens. No way you could survive at that marketplace. No way you could willingly get hunted by a fucking Predator. Whatever situation you have been put in, you have found a way to survive and this will be no different.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re just a persona.”

“I’ve gotten you this far and I will continue to get you through whatever else needed. In a couple of days if he doesn’t show up, then start to worry. If anything, treat these couple of days like a vacation. Collect yourself, refresh, relax, unwind. You can finally sing some songs like you’ve been wanting to.”

Eris laughed at the battle going on in her head. It was true that she wasn’t able to sing since she had been taken by the creatures. She wasn’t good, but it was fun to do anyway and being with Tichinde didn’t seem like a good time to start hollering away. Her voice of reason, Pike, was right. She shouldn’t start to worry unless he doesn’t show up in a couple of days. For now, she would just have to enjoy time to herself.

 

_______

 

This was the first time Tichinde was alone since before his last voyage to Earth to collect more ooman females to sell. Having the ooman Pike in his company wasn’t a chore to him, but it did take a lot of patience. He was used to controlling the beings and not putting too much time into them, so taking care of her was new to him. He would typically gather them up, train new members on his crew on how to take care of the oomans, then sell them off at the end of the day. This whole bonding with them thing was an eye opener on how they could operate. If he could find more oomans like her, he could get a lot more high-quality products in exchange for them.

Taking in a breath, he could feel his shoulders relax at the thought of finally being in his element. This wasn’t the time to start thinking about business processes. Setting his eyes on the dto, or as the ooman called it: jungle, in front of him, Tichinde started his hunting journey.

This place, no matter how many times he came here, was his favorite of all the planets he had been to. There was a certain peace about it that he just didn’t get from the others he had explored in his adventures. The prey here wasn’t challenging anymore, but that didn’t bother him in the slightest.

Trudging through the muck that spread itself between the trees, it wasn’t long until Tichinde found himself on the other side of the dto. A field of orange tinted grass spread across a wide area, exposing a lot of what he was hunting. Activating his cloaking ability before fully exposing himself from the halkrath, shadow, that the trees provided him, he began to walk across the field towards the beasts to size them up.

Once a Yautja could talk, they were taught a code to live by consisting of 12 rules. The first: Hunt Worthy Game. When hunting, the hunter must be sure that his prey is considered game, and lawful to kill. Worthy game must fill the following criteria: Can defend itself and/or is able to kill the hunter himself, is of age, not linked to other lives, and not weakened by diseases.

Though Tichinde was a Bad Blood, he still lived by some of the rules. It was engrained in him and beaten into him at such a young age that it was hard to stray from all of it, especially when a lot of it made sense. The prey he hunted, whether for sport or for food, had to be worthy. The creatures he was inspecting could end up killing him, but since he was a seasoned hunter, he knew exactly what to do to defeat one of them, like he had done several times in the past. The planet they were on was his favorite, but the creatures on it weren’t necessarily his favorite to hunt. Had it not been for the calmness that washed over him while being here, he wouldn’t even bother to return to hunt unless in dire need to.

Looking at the six-legged, furry beasts, it wasn’t long until Tichinde found one that would be worthy to fight. The creatures he was hunting stood taller than he did but despite having six legs, couldn’t compare to the speed that he possessed. Watching the animal walk around while it chose which patch of grass to graze on, Tichinde uncloaked himself.

A loud, high pitched squeal filled the air as the giant beast spotted him, scaring off all of the other creatures alike. Running at him with all of its weight swishing from side to side with each step towards him, Tichinde knew that this one would produce a lot of meat. If anything, killing this beast would supply him and the ooman food for quite some time, but that didn’t mean he was going to go back to the ship and leave. He was going to be out here for a couple of days regardless. If anything, it would also show him how the ooman female did when he wasn’t around. Would the place be destroyed? He would find out and correct if needed.

With the creature closing in, Tichinde easily dodged when it swung its tough neck at him to try to knock him off his feet. The motion alone reminded him of when he first tried to kill one of these creatures. After everything that transpired on Ryushi left him labeled a Bad Blood, he obtained a much smaller ship from one of the ooman villages to escape with. He happened upon this very planet and decided to hide out, which was the ultimate reason for it being his favorite. His plans were to wait it out once the higher council got involved as they received word on what had transpired.

Landing on the planet, Tichinde knew that he would have to remain there until everything cooled down. With the crime he had committed, it would be a while before travel would be safe. Yautja never gave up on their searches, but something with more importance was bound to get the attention of the higher council, bumping his crime down on the list. Knowing he was going to be on the planet for some time until he felt everything had relaxed, this planet would be his home.

Disabling the ship’s location device so it couldn’t be detected, Tichinde made sure to cover the outside of it with foliage just in case one of the Blooded ships were to be flying around the area, spotting it from above. The ship he had taken from the oomans was inferior to Yautja technology, meaning that if it shot off any signals, they would be too weak to be detected by their ships.

Tichinde knew that the Blooded ships wouldn’t be coming for him until after their own trip to Ryushi, taking this opportunity to hunt. Being one of the most superior races in the universe, the Yautja made sure to leave no trace of their existence behind. They would need to gather the bodies of their fallen, destroy the remains of the ship, exterminate the Kainde Amedha that still roamed the planet, and eliminate any ooman threat. If the oomans took any of their technology, or even a fallen Yautja body, then they needed to intervene and recover what was lost. It didn’t bother his kind if oomans knew of their species, they just couldn’t have proof.

He had walked the same path over and over, through the mucky dto to expose the orange field. The creatures that he saw there seemed docile as they ate their grass. Seeing their pelts for the first time, he knew it was something that he wanted as a trophy, not knowing that he would use it later to sleep on. Though the creatures were a lot taller than he was, he knew how to spot the one that would carry the most meat for him in his fugitive state. As he revealed himself to his chosen prey, that’s where his journey in trying to kill one began.

At first, he went for the throat to try to kill the beast, thinking it was odd that the animal wasn’t trying to protect itself there. When his dagger hit the skin for the first time, only barely piercing it, he knew that, despite the fur, it had very tough skin. The next place he tried was the animal’s head and when nothing stopped the irate beast after he had stabbed there, Tichinde wasn’t sure what would stop him. The creature had to have a weakness, since all living things did, but finding it was a challenge for him. It took stabbing just about everywhere to finally reveal where he needed to hit.

When he had first climbed the beast’s back to try to find some sort of weakness to it while taking hit after hit from its mouth, he felt a soft spot near the 11th spine that grew out of its back. The skin there didn’t look different, but it definitely felt different. Taking his dagger, he began to try to evade each quick attack from the head of the creature while stabbing diagonally right below the spine. That’s when the animal finally slowed down until it ultimately collapsed.

Hauling the meat back to the ship and cleaning his deep wounds, Tichinde spent the next couple of days inside the hidden ship. Once he felt it was safe to get out, he found a peace within the planet that he hadn’t felt before. His destiny was determined, he was a Bad Blood, and that was the path that he would have to walk.

Snapping back to reality as the beast swung its neck once more at him, Tichinde grabbed ahold of it after dodging it, he used the fur to begin to climb up the beast, making his way to its back. Knowing the anatomy of these animals from his prior hunts, Tichinde avoided the head and neck altogether and immediately went to that 11th spine on its back.

As the animal began to thrash around with him closing in on its back, Tichinde maintained his tight grip on its fur. Once on its back, he began to use the spine-like growths protruding out of its back as a way to travel across more efficiently, dodging the creature’s mouth when it reached back for him. Counting as he did so, Tichinde stopped as soon as he made it to the 11th growth, continuing to dodge the beast’s mouth. Using his right hand to steady himself before the next attack, he activated the wrist blades from the gauntlet on his left hand. Bringing it up, Tichinde began to stab diagonally downwards right below the growth, just like he had done several times before.

Howls echoed throughout the air as he continued to penetrate the beast’s skin with his metal blades. Continuing the thrash around as a means to try to get Tichinde off of its back, it didn’t take long until the thrashing slowed down until finally coming to a stop. All six legs buckled as the creature slowly fell to the ground. Filling the air with his own roar of success, Tichinde retracted his wrist blades before sizing the creature up.

The carcass laying in front of him was one of the bigger ones he had seen. This wasn’t a typical Yautja hunting ground, these animals probably weren’t hunted since the last time he was here, giving the species time to grow. Though plentiful in size, there was no way he could use all of the parts of this animal. A lot of it was completely useless to him nutritionally or just flat out didn’t taste good no matter how many plants he seasoned it with. The core of this animal is what Tichinde looked at, which is why he wouldn’t bring the entire animal back to his ship to put in his freezer like the others.

Deploying one of his nets so he would be able to carry the meat with him, Tichinde grabbed his knife from the sheath attached to his leg, bringing it to the belly of the creature before delicately inserting it into the tough skin. Though he had a lot of skins already and didn’t need anymore, he thought this would be a good gift to give to the ooman.

She seemed to like the skins on his bed, occasionally bringing one out with her when she left it. She would claim to be cold as she walked towards him with a skin wrapped around her before sitting by him in the control room on the floor or in the meal room. It was always the same skin she would bring, too, the skin of the beast he had just killed. This pelt, though, would be a lot bigger than the one the ooman carried around with her.

Leaving the legs out of the skinning, Tichinde made sure to just get the circumference around the creature’s middle. He didn’t care for the legs, always tangled in his bed. The thought of the ooman with the skin and the legs flailing about did seem amusing to him, though.

Tichinde paused as he rolled up the hide. After a hunt was usually a time to think about the next hunt, and yet here he was thinking about the ooman female on the ship. Looking at the rolled skin in his hand, he knew it would make her happy, but why was he doing this? He had no desire to mate with the ooman, nor did he have any desire to court her. Placing the skin on his back, he shook his head and plunged the knife into the beast once more, this time to gather the meat to put into the net. He needed to think about something else, and this was the time to do it.

Taking the chunks of warm, bloody meat and tossing it into the net, it didn’t take long until there were no more parts to be salvaged. Tichinde tied up the meat filled net before grabbing it and beginning to make his way back to the ship. Outside of where the ooman could see, he planned to hang the meat to dry, letting the natural juices from the animal exit the meat since it had a certain toxin in it that might kill the ooman.

Instead of trudging back through the muck, Tichinde slung the net over his back, making sure to avoid contact with the skin for the ooman, sinking his nails into the tree as he began to climb it. Once he found a solid enough branch, he began to jump from tree to tree until he made it back to his ship, being sure to avoid of the control room window he knew the female could look out of.

While passing the side of the ship to set up camp behind it to dry the meat, Tichinde stopped in his tracks when he heard a loud noise coming from inside the ship. Setting down the meat, knowing no creature would try to come for it, he activated his cloaking once more to look inside the front of his ship. Reaching the front and looking inside, a mandible raised inside of his mask in amusement at what he saw.

Inside of the ship was the ooman female spinning around while talking loudly. The rhythm in her voice was something he hadn’t heard an ooman do before. When they spoke, it was soft or sharp noises, but this one lingered on, drawing out each one of her words. Not being able to hear what she was exactly saying, Tichinde didn’t really know what was going on.

While she spun around and spoke loudly, Tichinde also noticed that she had grabbed all of his skins and placed them in the control area, making her own nest to sleep in. His bed was perfectly fine, so he was unsure why she had done this as well. Was this how oomans acted on Earth? It was interesting to him to say the least. He only ever got to see a frightened, sad ooman female, was this what a content one was like? Leaving her to her own activities since it didn’t appear that she was in danger, Tichinde made his way back to his meat.

Using sticks from the dto, he began to pierce the meat before sticking them to stand in the ground. When he had a good ten sticks with a variety of meat on each one, Tichinde made his way back to one of the trees, climbing up top before finding a comfortable place to sit down, back against the tree. The sun on this planet was setting, darkening the sky.

Normally Tichinde wouldn’t sleep this close to one of his ships when he was on a hunt. Even just for food, he would drop the meat off and then find another place to rest for the night. But this was his first time having the ooman on board and he was concerned for her. He saw the look on her face when he was leaving, it had fear written all over it. Though nothing on this planet would be able to penetrate the D’lex exterior of his ship, he wanted to make sure everything was good for her first night alone, plus she was providing some entertainment for him as well.

With the sky darkening it was easier to see inside the ship with no glare from the sun. The light from the control room lit up a bit of the field in front of it making it easy for him to look in. Using his helmet to zoom in and look at her, she was still dancing around and though he couldn’t hear her anymore, which was nice, the movements of her mouth indicated that she was still at it.

It hadn’t appeared that she had done anything malicious with his equipment in retaliation of him leaving, which was nice. He had heard several stories from Vex’ira about what would happen when he left an ooman female by herself, it was one of the reasons why he invented the collar. The worst one that Tichinde remembered was when Vex’ira was refilling his ship with water supply. The ooman had gone insane inside of the ship with freedom and began to destroy everything. Pouring liquids on his equipment, damaging the controls, making it near impossible to fix it all and get the ship back up and running. They were stranded on a planet that Vex’ira had only been to a handful of times, no materials that he could scavenge for or anything. Luckily, he had supply in his own ship that the female hadn’t destroyed that he was able to get his ship to work once more, but had he not had the backup supply, he would still be stuck on that planet. After that incident, he invented the collar and programmed it to where the oomans could and couldn’t go to on the ship.

Looking in on his ooman, he hadn’t remembered to keep any room off limits when he had left, and so far, she was showing that he didn’t have to. He wasn’t sure how she would be in the future, but right now he was looking at something that wasn’t a threat to their livelihood. Maybe the difference between the other oomans that Vex’ira had and his was a will to live.

The oomans Vex’ira owned had dead eyes, no sign of a soul in them. They followed his command because they had no other choice but to. The collars and Vex’ira’s hand defined them. When Tichinde had gone to see him, the oomans that he had with him were fairly new. He knew this because they still flinched and had fear in their faces; it would only be a matter of time before they were blank, too.

Pike, on the other hand, had a will to live. Destroying any of the controls or mechanics of the ship would mean that we wouldn’t be able to get off of this planet and he was sure that she knew that. Sure, she wasn’t aware that Tichinde had spare parts and would most likely be able to fix the ship, but that wasn’t a risk that he could see her taking.

Since meeting her on the slave ship for the first time, this ooman had done nothing but surprise him. He made the right decision in fighting and winning her. Taking his eyes from her, Tichinde let his head fall back and hit the tree. He would sleep for a couple of hours before hunting more beasts to replenish his food supply.

______

A couple days seemed to drag on for eternity as Eris rolled her way out of the pile of skins that she had brought to the control room. When Tichinde had first left her, she really didn’t want to sleep in the hive-like bed while being on a new planet. She wanted to see what was going on, so she brought every single one of his skins out of the bed and into the control room. It took her several trips, but it was worth it. The haunted forest still scared her, but the sight was more bearable as time went on. She had no idea what he was hunting, though, since nothing popped up in view in front of the glass window.

Other than sightseeing, there really wasn’t much for her to do. She was confined in a ship with no way to amuse herself besides singing and dancing around, and that was only entertaining for a limited time. Her first night was fun, she had to admit, since it had been what seemed like forever since she was able to be free to sing and dance. The last time she could remember doing that was far before she was homeless. It was sad when she thought about it, the fact that being on a foreign planet enslaved to some Alien race made her sing and dance more than when she was homeless on Earth.

The fact that she had been comparing her life now from the life she had on Earth concerned her a bit, not seeing how any of this was better. Maybe it was because she had lucked out and got a Predator that wasn’t a raging asshole like the ones she saw at the market. She could have gotten it so much worse, but instead she was stuck with Tichinde. One of the biggest things she appreciated about him was the fact that he could understand and speak with her. Being on the slave ship, she was only able to fully communicate with him. She couldn’t imagine what Alegra and Cara were going through.

Taking in a deep breath, Eris hadn’t thought about Alegra and Cara for a while now. She missed them terribly, but there was nothing she was ever going to be able to do. She wished they had all stayed together, but that was never going to be the case. All she could do was hope that they had a Predator like Tichinde.

Standing up, Eris tried to shake the thought of her friends being in horrible places out of her head. The only thing she could think of at this time to distract her was a shower. Heading to the room that contained the waterfall, Eris stripped herself from her tunic before turning the knob that would allow the water to flow. The pressure from the water hitting her back was soothing, helping take her mind off of the horrors she was building up in her head about her friends. The shower was a definite way to successfully distract her, and the loud splashing of the water covered the sound of the ship door opening up.

Walking into his ship, Tichinde could hear the shower running so he knew exactly where the female was. Leaving the door open so he could bring the dry meat inside to place into his freezer, it took a couple of trips to get it all in. Once all of his equipment was inside and the door was shut, he began to make his way to the shower when he heard the ooman yelling again. As he got closer, he could make out her saying something like ‘girls just want to have fun’. Confused, he moved closer until he was right outside the open doorway.

She seemed to really be wailing away in there, proclaiming her desire to have fun, which again made no sense to him. It wasn’t until she started randomly yelling ‘danger zone’ that Tichinde entered the room. Now, this wasn’t the first time he had seen this female naked, but this was the first time he had seen her dancing and naked. Looking around, he didn’t know why she was screaming anything about a zone being dangerous, everything seemed up to code.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Eris screamed as she opened her eyes only to find a gigantic Predator looking right at her.

“You yelled about a danger zone so I came to help you.” Tichinde kept his eyes on hers.

“It’s a song, I am singing!” Turning the shower off, Eris grabbed her tunic and quickly covered herself with it as if it were a towel. Calming herself, she realized she was just more startled than anything. He had seen her naked before and nothing had come of it, but it was absolute habit to cover herself. She knew he wouldn’t try anything, but she wasn’t comfortable just being all super naked in front of him.

“That’s what you call what you’re doing, singing?” He knew a lot of words and terms that oomans used, but he had never heard one ‘sing’.

“Well you don’t need to insult me now.” A laugh escaped her mouth as her heart began to calm down from the initial scare. “Also, thanks for not dying!” A feeling of relief hit her as soon as the initial scare was gone. He was back which meant they would be leaving this planet and she didn’t have to die from hunger.

“I told you I wouldn’t.” Tichinde grabbed the skin hide that was on his back. “Here’s another of the skin that you like so much.” He tossed it over to her.

Without thinking, Eris let go of her tunic that was covering her to catch the object that was thrown at her. “God damnit!” She spoke as she crouched, still holding the bundle in her hand while her bent knees covered her breasts. Unwrapping it, a smile crept across her face once more as she saw the grey fur with purple hues. Stretching it out, she wrapped herself in it, covering up completely. “Wow, this one is so much bigger than the other one.” She marveled in the skin.

“I thought you might like it.” He couldn’t take his eyes off of her, she seemed so appreciative. The Yautja weren’t an emotive race, when a nice act was done it wasn’t reacted to in the manner that she was.

“I do, I love it!” Eris noticed that he was looking at her. “Can I see what these animals look like alive?”

“No.” Tichinde replied fast, not comfortable yet with her leaving the ship.

“Well, alright.” The firm ‘no’ didn’t dampen her mood at all. She wasn’t sure she wanted to leave the ship, but that didn’t stop her from being curious on the image of the animal that this skin once belonged to. “Are we heading out then?” She had no idea where they would be heading to from here.

“Once I fill the ship with its water supply, we’ll be, as you say, heading out.” Tichinde turned on his heel and moved back to the control room, hearing the female’s steps behind him with a wet squish to each step. Sitting in his normal seat, he watched Pike make her way to the pile of skins on the floor to sit on, still wrapped in her new one. After they got water, he was going to make her put those all back.

Lifting the ship into the air, Tichinde casually flew until a giant body of water was beneath them. Pressing a button to release a hose that would suck the water up, it only took a couple moments until the ship’s water capacity was full.

“Do you have a filter to make that water safe or is it already good to go?” Eris questioned as she looked at all of the water in her view, shifting her tunic back on in the process, using the skin for some privacy.

“The hose purifies it as it enters the ship, making it safe to use.” He was pleased that she was curious. All of the technology that the Yautja race had was far superior than hers.

“That’s pretty cool.” She couldn’t help but think about that sort of technology on Earth. They could make saltwater safe for everyone and no one would have to go thirsty. Too bad some sort of tycoon would keep it to themselves and charge out the ass for it. “So, where are we heading to now?”

“To my real hunt.” Tichinde was excited to finally go on a challenging hunt. It had been a while since he had a challenge.

“But you just went hunting.” Eris darted her head to look at him.

“That was for much needed food, this will be for sport.” He kept his eyes on the map he pulled up as he began to ease the ship back into outer space. When it was just him consuming the food, everything seemed to last much longer. Now having a second mouth to feed, he noticed his supply run out quicker. It was nice in the beginning when the ooman wouldn’t eat that much. Once she got used to it, though, she was a carnivorous machine.

A heavy sigh fell out of Eris’ mouth as she fell back onto the skins. The next planet they went to, she would have to worry if he was going to die or not again. She didn’t know why it was so ingrained into Predators that they had to hunt and hunt. She was confused.

“You can put those skins back where you found them now.”

Another groan fell from her mouth as Eris stood up and began dragging skin after skin back to the hive-like bed. They were right back to where they started. Even though they had just left the planet, she felt as though they had never gone there. It was back to the same stuff, which she knew would happen. The only thing that kept reminding her that they were there was the skin that he had brought back for her. Another smile placed itself on her face as she looked down at the skin she was wrapped in. So far, she had it pretty darn good. After all the skins were back on the bed, Eris made her way back to the control room where Tichinde was, she couldn’t believe something that looked like that had gotten her a gift, “So, wanna play Cat and Mouse?”


	7. Chapter 7

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Eris questioned as she held a questionable piece of meat with her hands. She was used to eating weird meats by now, but something looked seriously wrong with this one, worse than the blue one she had consumed.

"Eat it." Tichinde spoke through chews and swallows, holding a piece of food with his mandibles as he pressed the meat towards him to take another bite.

Something in Eris' mind knew that he wasn't asking her to eat it, he was demanding it. There had been something off with Tichinde the past couple of days, though she was completely clueless as to why. They had continued playing cat and mouse with each other so it wasn't a lack of that going around. She had been getting better, even recently making it to 17 minutes, which had her smiling from ear to ear. He seemed to be her support system, too, congratulating her on her wins; appearing genuinely happy that she was getting better. Whether it was because it meant more hunting time for him or not, she appreciated it.

Taking the greenish-black hunk of meat to her mouth, Eris darted eyes over to the Yautja who was staring heavily at her as he ate. She had noticed herself referring to him less as a Predator and more as a Yautja. Through his tough exterior, he had done nothing to harm her, and because of this it seemed she was humanizing him. Opening her mouth to take a bite of the substance, she let her teeth sink in until a chunk broke off into her mouth.

Holding it in her mouth a moment, she made a face of disgust at Tichinde before slowly chewing. Her eyes widened as soon as her teeth squished the meat and juices began to flow in her mouth. "What is this blessed meat of flavor?" Typically, she wouldn't speak with her mouth open, but seeing as he always did it with his odd-looking mouth, she figured it was alright. A Yautja with table manners, a funny thought.

"Zabin Amedha." Tichinde was uncertain how to describe to her what she was eating without her getting emotional. In his time with female oomans, he knew that they could be very picky eaters and might shut down if they knew exactly what they were consuming. He wasn't about to tell her that she was eating meat from, what an ooman would call, a space insect- especially because she liked it so much by the looks of it.

"Zabin Amedha… What's that mean though?" In all of their time together, it was rare for him to not tell her exactly what he meant when he spoke to her. Either way, the greenish-black meat she was eating was delicious! On Earth, green tint on meat meant that it was bad resulting in some sort of poisoning done to her body, but this was great!

"It means you eat it because it is food." Tichinde had been on edge the past couple of days, since leaving his favorite planet. He wasn't entirely sure what was causing his slump, but he wasn't too happy about it. He could tell that the ooman was catching on to whatever was going on with him. Maybe it was that he was used to being alone? He didn't feel like he needed a break from her, though. Even if he did, he was responsible for her now.; she was stuck with him. If he were to tire of her, she could not be traded or sold to another. Tichinde did not like to share his things.

"Snappy." She was all too comfortable with him and able to let her sarcasm flow. There was a difference between scared sarcasm and comfortable sarcasm. When she was taken by him and his species, she had to use Pike as a front for all that she did, it kept her alive. Being with Tichinde, though, she was showing him more and more of Eris and less Pike. Pike would still show up now and then, but it wasn't as frequent. Her sarcasm now was from the heart, to say the least. She was comfortable. He made her comfortable. "What's been up with you lately?"

Her question only confirmed to him that she was aware of his shortness. Had he not spent a large portion of his life with ooman females and learning to keep his composure around them, he would have already flown off the handle by now. Not at her, but at his frustration at not knowing why he was foul. If she weren't here, he would be able to rage all he wanted without concern of scaring her. She had opened up more to him, more than any ooman had done before, and he knew his temper would easily break that entire trust he had earned within an instant.

His upcoming hunt would definitely take the stress off of his plate. She would be on the ship and he would be able to be as animalistic as he felt. He could take his rage out on his prey, which would be a lot harder to conquer than what he had been fighting in the recent past. Completely letting go of all the fibers of his being, not having to worry about holding back. Jehdin, Jehdin. One on One with his prey.

"Want to play cat and mouse? I'll let you use your helmet." Another chunk of meat fell into her mouth as she continued to eat the strange, but wonderful, food in front of her. Her eyes never left Tichinde, though he had stopped looking at her. Being concerned for his feelings was a weird feeling for Eris. His silence meant that he was in deep thought, when normally he'd respond to whatever she asked within a fraction of a second.

Turning his eyes to look at her, he was surprised at her offer. She was willing to play their hunting game with him using his mask. Was this a way for her to cheer him up? What was the meaning of the offer? Grabbing the chunk of meat that his mandibles held, he placed it down onto the counter. "I accept your challenge." He was curious to see how she did without being able to see him.

"The rules still stand: no jump scares, okay?" thoughts of running into him while he was cloaked was still scary to her.

"Abilities still stand, I can smell fear." Tichinde retorted, as if he would have already forgotten the rules. Yep, he was definitely annoyed at something.

"Then this shall be a fast match." Taking one last bite of her meat, Eris waited for Tichinde to leave so she could start to hide. "Alright, go get ready and roar your invisible roar." Her heart beat quickly within her chest.

He could smell her fear already; he knew this wasn't going to be a long match. Scared oomans put off a slight odor when scared, making it easy to hunt them, especially when they were in the quarters of a ship where the air was contained. Without even using his mask, he could sense which way she had gone. Grabbing his mask before making his way to where he usually started, he counted to ten before filling the container with a loud roar.

Activating the cloaking mechanism on his helmet, Tichinde made his way through the ship to find her. Already he sensed where she was. He wasn't sure what it was about him being cloaked that scared her so; he hadn't been able to sense her this much since he first started hunting her on the ship. Even then, she was able to compose herself better than she was now. Sight was a huge factor for oomans, it seemed, not liking the unknown. No jump scares, okay? He kept playing in his head what she had said. When they had first started this and now, no jump scares.

Following her scent, he had her in his sights. She was ducking behind a pillar, poking her head around it looking for him. He could tell that she was trying to sense him, but couldn't. He had told her that he wasn't going to use the heat seeking feature on her, but that was only for finding her. Now that she was in his sights, he changed his vision.

Her heart was racing, her chest and head showing greater temperatures than normal. Inside the display of his mask he could view her heart rate spiking erratically. Watching her intake of breath, he could see that she was trying to compose herself.

He followed as she tried to find a new spot, which happened to be in his sleeping chambers. Usually, he would have already stopped to give her a break, but he wanted to see how she moved when he was cloaked. What were her patterns? He noticed that she walked on the pads of her feet, seeing the floor turn red in its wake. Never fully grabbing an object or wall, he could see just the tips of her fingers leaving trails on all that she touched. Long, well thought out strides controlled her movements as she went from room to room. It was interesting to study what this particular ooman did. Whenever he had fought oomans in the past, males, they were so much louder than she was being. Was this a simple trait of being a female instead of male prey?

A couple minutes went by until he finally decided to let her calm down. Activating the collar on his wrist gauntlet to bring it slowly to him, not allowing her to move a certain distance from her, he watched as she jumped at the motion. Uncloaking himself, he watched her turn around.

"Holy shit that was scary!" She felt like she could finally breathe again. Eris didn't like that game, not one bit. She had no idea where he was the whole time. Always putting her worst fear at the forefront of her mind, she continued to let it disrupt her thoughts and tactics. When she could see where he was, she could focus on a solution to evade detection. When he was invisible, all sense went out the window.

"I was not going to harm you, why were you so frightened?" He honestly expected more out of her, but knowing that oomans let their feelings control them, he wasn't surprised by the result. If anything, he at least got to see how she moved.

"I don't know, I just kept thinking that you were going to pop up out of nowhere or that I was going to run into you unknowingly." She wiped away the beads of sweat that formed on the back of her neck from nervousness. Heading to the bed, Eris grabbed the skin that Tichinde had gifted her and wrapped herself in it.

"You don't trust me or my word?" That's all Tichinde could think of. He had never done anything to harm her or make her do anything she didn't really want to do since he had obtained her. She was able to move freely on his ship, sleep in his bed by herself, and he had not laid a hand on her or punished her whatsoever. He had given her no reason not to trust him and he was offended.

"I guess I don't really trust anybody." She could see his stance change, more of a defensive one than she had seen him display before. Nervousness began to fill her as she began to play with the fur that engulfed her.

"You trust your oomans," He folded his arms across his chest. Yautja didn't do well with disrespect, no matter how much control in their patience they had. Though he knew that she didn't know she had disrespected him, but that didn't excuse it for him this time. "I have not done one thing to harm you, and I have kept all of my promises to you."

"I don't trust humans either." Eris couldn't bring herself to look him in the eyes. She could feel the heat from his on her, burning into her skin. Something was definitely up with him and she had apparently done something wrong. He was right, he had done nothing to harm her since she had been aboard his ship, but that didn't mean that she could fully trust him.

"Put an ooman male in my position and you wouldn't have been scared."

"You're right, I would have been more terrified!" She loudly voiced to him as she whipped her head up to meet his.

More terrified of an ooman than a Yautja? Tichinde couldn't believe what she had just said. It made no sense to him. "I can do far more damage to you than an ooman male."

"But only an ooman male has harmed me." She mocked the way he spoke her language. "You haven't touched me." Eris was surprised in her actions. The whole thing with Nolan had happened a long time ago, she didn't know it still affected her this much. This whole time she hadn't thought about him, but because of him she couldn't trust men. In the beginning, he didn't lay a hand on her, but in the end it all came crashing down.

Tossing his head in a jerking motion, Tichinde's interest peaked in the conversation. Here he was, a Yautja male with exponentially more power than an ooman, yet an ooman male who was less animalistic than him couldn't hold his composure and struck a female? Ooman females were more emotional than both sexes of his species combined, but her emotions now seemed valid. "Was it for mating?"

"What the hell? Mating, really?" The corner of her lip twitched upward in disgust. Why the hell would he hit me for sex? What kind of question was that?

In his culture, Yautja females were known as superior and the act of striking one without the result of mating was unnatural to him. Yautja females had to be won over, a male had to prove his strength and worth to be able to have the rights to breed with her. Females on his planet were strong and would only let strong Yautja males that could handle them have the rights to pass down their bloodline. Weaker males didn't get such rights. If you wanted to expand your lineage, you had to earn it.

Tichinde wasn't too familiar with mating rituals of ooman females. He knew that they didn't like to be handled roughly, but he only thought that because of how strong his race was and the fact that they were taking them from their home. He was learning much about ooman customs, which apparently meant that a male ooman had initiated combat towards her.

"Why then?" His curiosity was apparent. Why would an ooman male strike a female if that wasn't their mating custom.

"I don't know," Eris sat down with her back against the wall, "He just wanted to hurt me because I… I don't know. He just did it." There was never a logical reason as to why a man would hurt a woman and Eris wasn't about to make one up for him. If she were to get in a fight and threw the first punch, she fully expected to get hit back regardless of the gender she was attacking. Nothing guaranteed her safety if she was going to hit someone, not even gender because not all men had the same beliefs to not hit a woman. This is why she didn't go around hitting people, not that she wanted to anyway. "He was my boyfriend and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him until he went off the deep end."

Oomans were monogamous for the most part, Tichinde knew, typically staying with one male for the rest of their lives after a ceremony was performed. If she had plans to mate with this ooman male for the rest of her life, he could see where the betrayal came from. He was still disrespected since he wasn't a pathetic ooman male who couldn't control himself and didn't like to be compared to as such, but her logic made more sense to him now.

"I am not an ooman male." He relaxed his once defensive stance at her. "I will not harm you."

Eris believed him. She didn't know what a Bad Blood really was, but this guy wasn't bad at all. She had no idea how he was labeled as such. Maybe a traumatic experience earlier in his life that he outgrew? When you were labeled a Bad Blood was that your status forever? It didn't matter, she knew that he meant it when he told her that he wouldn't harm her. Standing up, Eris made her way to Tichinde, maintaining eye contact until she reached him. Extending her hand to touch him, she slowly began to trace her fingertips on his skin when he didn't protest the touch. She hadn't touched him before, not thinking that he would ever let her or that she would ever want to.

After tracing his mottled markings for a couple of seconds, she brought herself in to hug him, wrapping her arms around his warm body. It was insane how warm he was. Whenever they were standing in a close proximity of each other, she just thought it was hot in the ship, she never pieced together that it was him that was radiating all of that heat.

Looking down at the ooman female, he was somehow alright with her embrace. He wasn't sure why she was showing this much affection towards him, but he wasn't about to push her away in her emotional state. Since becoming a Bad Blood, she was the first creature to not acknowledge him as such. Bringing one of his hands to touch her back to comfort her, he felt her body sink into him more.

The embrace was short lived.

Flashing red lights began to fill the ship as it started to rock back and forth. Trying to regain balance, Tichinde scooped up Pike as he ran to the control room to see what was going on. Was it a cluster of meteors hitting the ship? He was certain that the route he entered had a clear path to his hunting planet. This all made no sense.

Turning corner after corner with the ooman in his arms to get to the control room as fast as he could, Tichinde came to a complete stop. Warning alarms that indicated the ship was being breached started to blare causing Tichinde to whip his head towards the exit of his ship. It wasn't a meteor shower interfering with his ship, it was another Yautja ship.

Placing Pike down and pushing her behind him, he readied his stance to fight whoever was coming onboard. Grabbing his ki'its-pa, he pressed the button that activated it to full form. Holding the spear in his hand, he prepared for battle. He didn't know who was invading his ship, but he was prepared for a fight.

"Tichinde, it has been a long time." Large footsteps echoed through the halls against the sirens as the Yautja came forward to meet Tichinde.

"Dachande!" Tichinde yelled forth in disbelief as the Yautja came into sight. It couldn't be, he died on Ryushi! He saw his dead body after the explosion, pieces of metal jutting out of him. His blood was all over the ground, there was no way he was standing before him. It was because of him that Tichinde was labeled a Bad Blood.

When the explosion hit their ship, Tichinde was certain that their clan leader, Dachande, was dead. All of the Clan leaders on that ship had perished in the explosion, leaving Tichinde to lead the un-blooded Yautjas to victory. Trying to avenge who had killed their leaders, it wasn't seen that way to the higher council of Elite and Elder Yautja warriors. To them, they should have stayed put. It was a must to leave no evidence of their existence, but the oomans were right there and many Kainde Amedha lurked about. Had they not gone to kill the aliens, they would have bred until there was nothing left. The un-blooded wouldn't be able to take them all on, they would have all died!

Before the ship had exploded, the Yautja warriors had dropped several eggs onto Ryushi to prepare for the hunt. It was custom for the un-blooded warriors to kill a Kainde Amedha before they would be deemed Blooded. They were on their first Chiva and everything that could have gone wrong did.

Since Dachande had survived, it was viewed as Tichinde taking over the clan which was a betrayal on all counts. He knew he was in trouble, but now it had gotten so much worse. He had difficulties with Dachande in the past, challenging him at every turn, but that didn't mean he wanted him dead. If he did, he wanted it done by his own hands, not by an explosion caused by mere oomans.

"You didn't think I was dead, did you?" Dachande's guttural voice filled the air as he and two other Yautjas walked into the ship; one male and one female. "You took 9 of my un-blooded students and got them killed!" He barked at Tichinde as he remembered what he had witnessed on Ryushi.

"I thought you had died." He still couldn't believe that his old Clan leader was alive. Dachande was well respected and well ranked in the Yautja world. He had taken thousands of students on their first chiva to become blooded after training them, his success to failure ratio was astounding: 90% of the students that Dachande had trained succeeded in their chivas with only 10% failing or dying in the process.

"And yet here I am." He stepped forward, watching Tichinde get into a battle stance as he did so. "You didn't bother to check if I had a heartbeat. You just assumed I was dead by my wounds as you carried on with my students. I got to watch you steer them into the direction of an early death until Blooded Yautja came to the distress call the ship had sent out before it blew up." Stopping mere feet from his rival, he noticed something on Tichinde's forehead. "That's an interesting mark on your head." He referred to the crescent shaped scar. "Do you even know what that scar means?"

"It means I have killed Bad Bloods." Tichinde barked back, readying himself as he began to smell the fear come off of the ooman female behind him, trying to release his own musk to cover it up as she remained undetected thus far.

"Bad Blood or not, you like to kill your own kind, don't you?" Dachande couldn't believe he wore such a mark on his head.

"I wasn't trying to become a Bad Blood. I was trying to keep myself and 9 others alive. We had just released several Kainde Amedha eggs on that planet and they would have wrought havoc! All of the clan leaders were dead and I did what I had to do." He could feel the pent-up rage inside of him boil over.

"Is that what you were doing, because it looked to me like you were getting 9 students killed as you left the planet in an ooman vessel." It was one thing for a student to fail his chiva because of their own doing and a completely different situation when it was because of another Yautja.

""Ell-osde' pauk!" Tichinde spat at him, not wanting to hear anymore of his words.

Eris grabbed the skin that was still wrapped around her tighter as she heard Tichinde yell at the beings in front of him. She had no idea what they were saying. She picked up on Thei-de and Kainde Amedha, that was about it. So, something was dead and something was meat. Even with as much information as she had, which was clearly a ton, she couldn't figure anything out. Even on the slave ship she didn't hear the Yautja speak this much to each other, it was terrifying.

"What's that smell?" The female Yautja spoke up, stepping closer to Tichinde than Dachande was. "Fear. Ooman odor?"

"H'dlak." Eris could hear a voice softly speak, "Ooman H'dui'se?" Concern filled her as she knew what the word ooman meant. So far, she had been able to hide behind Tichinde this whole time, but now she was spotted. It looked like the training by playing cat and mouse didn't work for her, she was scared and she could see them. They knew she was here because they could smell her.

Poking her head from behind Tichinde, Eris met eyes with 3 Yautja warriors standing at the exit gate. A ramp led down their ship to join with theirs, walls enclosed around it as to not get sucked into the void that was space. They were fucked, she was fucked. She was about to die. "Tichinde, what's going on?" She surprisingly managed to speak.

"Stay quiet." Tichinde pushed her back behind him to hide her once more.

"You have an ooman female?" Dachande spoke as he met where his female counterpart was. "I had heard that you were into trafficking ooman females around the universe. I never pegged you to keep one yourself." He himself had never gotten into the whole ooman fad. He knew bits and pieces of their language, but not enough to own one.

"He just told her to be quiet, I wonder what he is hiding." The female spoke, laughing at the end of her sentence.

"I almost forgot that understand Ooman speak, Ki'dra." His comrade had spent many moons with the oomans, more than he ever hoped to. He didn't dislike ooman females, just what it did to Yautja males. "Enough chatting. You can either come with us or die where you stand."

"I'm only going to die if I go with you, so if this is where I shall perish, then so be it." Tichinde tightened his grip on his ki'its-pa, watching Dachande in front of him begin a battle stance. "Jehdin, Jehdin." He threw his spear to the ground, flexing his fingers into tight fists.

"No mercy, no fear." Dachande spoke as he gave his weapons to Ki'dra.

"M-di H'chak, M-di H'dlak." Eris heard the other male speak as she was pushed back when Tichinde flew forward to meet the other Yautja male. She couldn't believe what she was watching right now. She had remembered the fights back in the market ship, but this was different. She could tell that there was some sort of grudge between the two as they fought.

Loud roars filled the ship as the fight went on, the flashing red lights and sirens only intensifying the battle. Watching as Tichinde took hit after hit from the monstrous other Yautja made her sick to her stomach. He was taller than him, more rugged looking, too. His dreads had silver rings in them, which she hadn't seen before. His strikes were powerful, covering the metal walls with Tichinde's vibrant blood. "Tichinde!" She called out to him, but that was all she could do. It wasn't like he wasn't getting his own hits in, but they were few and far between the ones that the bigger Yautja was landing on him.

The fight that she had front row tickets too was more than scary for her. As her eyes couldn't tear themselves away from the fight, she had barely noticed that's he was being splattered with Tichinde's blood. Her whole body felt like it was on fire as the fight continued on. When she was first taken by Tichinde, she wanted nothing more than to see him get the shit beat out of him, but now that she knew and cared for him, this was unbearable.

Not knowing how long it had been, Eris was certain that she didn't blink the whole time. As the battle began to slow down, tears began to fill Eris' eyes as Tichinde fell to his knees. Keeping his torso up, she watched as Tichinde kept his head up, looking at his opponent. It was clear that he had been defeated, but he still remained strong in his demise.

It was then the walls started to echo with Tichinde's opponents laugh. He knew he had won, everyone there knew that he had won. Eris' eyes watched as the other Predator tightened his fist before doling out one final blow to Tichinde's skull, watching as his body went limp, crashing onto the floor. "Tichinde, no!"

Dropping the skin that once encased her, Eris scurried to be by his side, kneeling down beside Tichinde's body. As the neon blood began to form a large pool on the floor, she brought her eyes to look at the three Predators in front of her. "Why did you do this?" She yelled, tears warming her cheeks in a steady stream.

Ignoring her cries, Dachande wiped the blood from his opponent off of his forehead. He had been wanting to do that ever since that day on Ryushi. He watched as the ooman female cried over the now deceased Tichinde.

"My name is Eris, I never got to tell you that." She continued to cry, not knowing what she was going to do now. He had kept her alive, and now she was by herself. Looking up at the 3 Predators to give them a deathly glare, she noticed their backs towards her, leaving the ship. "No, wait!" she bolted up, catching them before they made it to the ramp that connected the ship. She wasn't happy with what they had just done, in fact she was pretty pissed, but they were her only means for survival now.

Activating the Sivk'va-tai on his shoulder, he pointed it at the girl. He had no idea what she was doing. "Thei-de ooman." He motioned her to back up, the 3 dots from his plasma caster pointing right on her forehead.

"You're killing me either way," Eris stopped a foot away from the Predator. She had recognized the red laser glow from when she was back on Earth and she knew that it was a gun. "If my options are to die on this ship after you leave me or to die now, then I choose now, but I will die trying to board your ship!" She stood firm, not knowing if he was like Tichinde and was able to understand her.

Looking over at Ki'dra, he noticed her mandibles twitch in amusement. "What did she say?" He asked, not knowing entirely what had transpired.

"She said that you are killing her either way. If she has a choice to die, it will be by trying to come with us." Ki'dra could respect the boldness of the ooman female in front of her. She had no personal quarrels with her kind, spending time with some of them back on their clan ship. They were interesting creatures to say the least.

Taking his sight from Ki'dra and placing it back onto the ooman, Dachande lowered his Sivk'va-tai. Stepping out of the way, he would allow her to enter his ship. They would take her back to the clan ship and then decide what to do with her from there. It wasn't her fault she was introduced to this world.

Darting her eyes back and forth between the two, not knowing what they had said, Eris knew that whatever the female Predator had done was letting her enter the ship. This was the first time she had seen a female; the difference was apparent. Taller, sleeker, more mottled patterns on her skin, she was a weird, beautiful creature. But now was not the time to marvel at her. She was grateful for whatever she had said, unless it was something that had to do with her being lunch.

As she walked forward to enter the ship, Eris came to a sudden stop. "Oh fuck!" She spoke as she felt the collar around her neck refuse to let her go up onto the ramp. Looking at the Predators that were in front of her already on the ship, she knew that unless she got Tichinde's wrist gauntlet that she wouldn't be entering their ship and would die on this one.

Turning her head over her shoulder to look at Tichinde's dead body, she didn't know how she was going to get the gauntlet off of his wrist. It was then that the staff he'd been holding was illuminated by the flashing red lights. Taking in a deep breath, Eris grabbed the spear while looking down at Tichinde. She didn't want to do it, but it was literally the only thing standing in the way of her living and dying. Not knowing how long the new Predators would wait for her, Eris brought the staff up above her head before she began chopping away at Tichinde's arm. "I'm so sorry!"

Vibrant green blood began to paint the walls, the fur blanket next to his body, and even Eris as she swung away. Once his arm was completely severed from his body, Eris threw the spear down and picked his arm up with one hand and the fur in the other. The arm was heavier than she was expecting, but she managed.

"I need this." She spoke to the Predators, who looked at her in utter confusion, as she boarded the ship with Tichinde's severed arm.

"Why did she do that?" Dachande had never seen an enslaved ooman act that way before. Most were meek creatures due to their situations, but this one just cut off the arm of her master. Had she not just cried at his defeat? Why would she show such emotion towards Tichinde and then turn around and chop his arm off? Ooman females, oomans in general, were too complex.

"I don't know, but whatever she did she's apparently sorry about it." Ki'dra's interest was also piqued as she followed the ooman into the ship. "Oh, and she also apparently needs his arm."

"Do you have any opinions on her?" Dachande was curious what Ki'dra thought about the ooman. She had spent more time with them than he had and didn't know if this was normal behavior. Back on their clan ship, Ki'dra was known to befriend the ooman slaves and warriors there.

"I think she's great." Ki'dra laughed at the actions the ooman had committed. The ooman was brutal, and Ki'dra liked it.

"I'm not sure about her. She seems emotionally impulsive." Pressing a button to call back the ramp to the ship and close the door, Dachande made it to his ship's control center to pull away. "You can put her in the confinement cell until we get to the clan ship. He began to pull the ship away from his deceased foe's, watching everything it once contained sucked out into the vacuum of space. Skins, equipment, weapons, everything that wasn't locked down was floating in space. Releasing one of his ship's bombs, Dachande quickly drove his ship away before the explosion went off, eliminating any evidence of the Yautja existence.

Taking the shoulder of the ooman in her hand, Ki'dra began to usher her into one of the holding cells. Looking down at the female as they walked, she wasn't sure what this specific ooman was made of. If she were to be going back to their clan ship, what would become of her? She didn't particularly care, but she did want to know more about her.

"Why take arm?" Ki'dra's English wasn't the best.

Tossing her head up and over her shoulder, Eris was surprised that she was speaking to her in her own language. After the conversations on the ship that they had just had, she didn't think any of them spoke it. "The collar around my neck is attached to it. It is set to where I can't get out of a certain range of it." She hoped that the female Predator would understand her.

"So, you cut off." Ki'dra stated. It made sense to her now, she needed to do it in order for her to survive. Lively one.

She sounded like a barbarian to her, but that was better than nothing. "Yes, so I cut it off."

"Skin?" The female Yautja looked at the ooman clutching to the pelt.

"Tichinde gave it to me." Eris tried not to shed a tear here, trying to let Pike take over.

Ki'dra didn't reply as they continued walking. It wasn't long until they finally made it to the cell after a couple of twists and turns. Leading the ooman in, Ki'dra grabbed the arm from her.

"Give that back!" Eris whipped around, reaching up towards Tichinde's severed arm. She looked like a kid reaching for a toy with the size difference.

Ignoring her, Ki'dra hit a couple buttons, swiping here and there on the panel until she released the gauntlet from the remains of the arm. "Dead arm, dead smell."

"Oh," Eris knew what she was talking about. Hauling a severed arm everywhere would indeed cause it to smell, which would be most unpleasant. "Thank you."

Holding the Gauntlet that was fresh from Tichinde's detached arm, Ki'dra began to deactivate the bomb that was within it. The bomb was there in case a Yautja lost a battle, being able to activate and destroy everything within a wide range, making sure no traces of their existence was left behind. Taking the dud gauntlet, the female Yautja grabbed Eris' arm, sliding it over her hand until it wrapped around her entire forearm. Closing it around her pale flesh, Ki'dra adjusted it to where it would fit and not slide off. Now that it wasn't a danger to them if the ooman accidently activated it, she could do as she pleased with it, and since it was tied to her collar, it might as well be on her arm. When they were on the clan ship, they would get the whole collar situation figured out since it was something she had never seen on an ooman before. To have it linked to the gauntlet, too, was an interesting feature.

Watching as the female placed the gauntlet on her arm, Eris couldn't help but lean more to the left with the new weight she was carrying on her arm. "Thank you." She was relieved that the gauntlet was on her forearm, it meant she wouldn't have to worry about getting far from it and being stranded.

"You stay here." Ki'dra stepped outside of the doorway, activating a glass door to prevent the ooman from getting out and exploring. "We go to clan ship now."

Nodding her head, there really wasn't much Eris could do at this point. Looking at her new surroundings, there wasn't much to it. The bed was a hole in the wall, nothing uncomfortable looking, but it wasn't like the hive-like bed that she became accustomed to. The room itself was just a tad bigger than her holding cell back on the slave ship with Alegra and Cara. Walking the short distance over to the bed, she took a seat.

Unwrapping the fur blanket in her hand, she began to trace the fur where Tichinde's blood had been spilled. Tears began to fill into her eyes as she clutched the fur in both of her hands, bringing it up to her face and crying within it. Tichinde had treated her well, even if she was his pet thing or whatever, he was good to her. He supplied food and water to her, kept her warm, kept her healthy, and not once harmed her in any form. He kept his word on everything, and now he was gone. All she had left of him was his gauntlet and the fur that he had given to her. She was happy she grabbed it before everything started to happen in the ship, not knowing how she would feel if she didn't have it anymore.

Taking the blanket away from her face, she wiped her nose with her right forearm trying to keep the fur in good condition. Gasping for air from her aggressive cry, she let her body fall on the cushion like bed, covering herself with the fur. This was the hardest she had cried since being taken, not even Pike would be able to calm her down. Her thoughts were all Eris, no words of encouragement from Pike appeared. Silence.

"What's going to happen to me?" She whispered out in between her cries. She hadn't felt this useless, helpless, in a long time. She was in space getting passed around and around to different Predators. Once she became content, everything would change. First with her friends, now with Tichinde. What was next? What if these Predators were good to her, too, and then she gets taken away from them? Would her entire life be just being passed from one Predator to another? She didn't know if she would be able to live that kind of life, but what choice did she have in it? She didn't want to kill herself, that was certain, but how was she going to survive this? How much more was she going to be able to take before she just withered away?

Questions overpowered her mind as her cries continued. If she didn't get it out now, it would only get worse by holding it in and having it burst out later, at least right now she was alone. She wanted to go home, but there was nothing for her to call home. She just wanted a place where she felt safe. Tichinde made her feel safe.

The visuals of Tichinde dying in front of her kept playing over and over in her mind. She was helpless, she couldn't help him even if she tried. There was nothing she could have done for him, and she only gained a little bit of solace knowing that Tichinde had known that she wouldn't have been able to help him. When her journey here first started, she never thought she'd be this upset about one of the beasts dying, but here she was crying for her lost friend. He was a good Yautja.

Taking in one last deep breath to let out a cry, the tears began to slow down. She could feel her eyes were swollen from how hard and how much she had cried. Knowing that she would cry later, Eris had to get everything out before she made it to the clan ship. For all she knew, another weird market would be on the clan ship that they were going to where she would be sold off again to God knows what. She had yet to be a mess in front of foreign Predators, she wasn't going to start now. She needed to stay strong since she had no idea what was going to happen to her. But for now, she was going to let herself feel pain.


	8. Chapter 8

Eris wasn’t entirely sure how long she had been on the new ship; it was anyone’s guess really. She spent most of her time pacing the cell and waiting for Kidra to come back so they could converse more. If she had a Fit Bit, she knew there would be thousands of leg movement logged.   
  
 It was lonely being in the room by herself, causing her to miss her friends even more than she had. She was free to move around when she was alone on Tichinde’s ship which helped her mentally. This, though, was exhausting. Were they close to their destination? Were they going to kill her? Sell her? The bittersweet thing about lingering on the ship was the feeling that she was safe for now, but it only meant she was getting closer and closer to uncertainty.   
  
She could see how people went mad with being confined in a small space for too long. Had it not been for Kidra coming and talking with her, occasionally letting her walk around the ship, she knew she would have fallen into space madness. She recalled her first encounter with Kidra after she initially came onto the ship.   
  
“What make you special?” Eris remembered the female Yautja’s voice. When she had calmed down enough to be able to study her, she took everything about this new creature in. Her voice had a roughness to it like the others, but somehow hit her ears differently. It was slightly more feminine sounding than the males.   
  
She knew there had to be some sort of opposite sex of the male Yautjas she had encountered, but was never entirely sure. Having only seen female humans and male Yautjas, one of her theories was that they reproduced asexually and liked the act of sex with human females on the side. She blamed Alegra all too much for her weird alien thoughts, which wasn’t a bad thing.     
  
“What do you mean?” She had asked Kidra at her question. Eris never thought there was anything special about her. If you lined her up with the rest of the human females, they were all the same, flesh and bone. The fact that this Yautja was throwing around the assumption that she was special confused and scared the ever living shit out of her. In movies, being the ‘special’ one always came with a lot of baggage and Eris wasn’t entirely sure if she could carry anymore.   
  
“Tichinde,” Ki’dra started to speak with her unique voice while she made her way inside of the cell. “He Bad Blood. He fight for you, no harm you. What make you special?”   
  
The way her giant body gently walked into the room was like an oxymoron in itself. How could something so enormous be so graceful like that? Had she not been looking straight at the alien in front of her, she wouldn’t have ever heard her come in.   
  
“I don’t know what being a Bad Blood means and I don’t know why I would be special.” Eris pieced together that since Tichinde was some sort of criminal, that it was surprising he kept a human pet in great condition. She didn’t like referring to herself as a pet, but that was indeed what she was to their kind.   
  
“He fight for you.” The Eifel Tower of a creature repeated.   
  
“He fought for me?” Eris questioned her once more. Not entirely sure what Kidra was talking about until she remembered being put on a pedestal as a prize to be bought. Since she had snuck away, it escaped her mind that Tichinde did fight for her. “Oh, yes he fought for me to own me.”  
  
“Why special?” Ki’dra spoke once more. “Rumor he never had ooman before.”  
  
Surprised, Eris never knew that she had been his first human purchase ever. With a career like his, though, she could see why he wouldn’t want to bring his work home with him. She thought more about Kidra’s question. She wanted to know why Tichinde decided to fight for her, which she still wasn’t so sure on. “Well, when they took me from Earth I wasn’t afraid to talk to them. There was another Yautja,” Eris stopped speaking when Kidra looked at her intently after using her races name. Continuing, “I never got his name, but he and I had a back and forth throughout the ship. I never cried, so maybe there’s that too. I threw a fit when I heard one girl strangling another girl.”  
  
“Nothing special with that, what else?” Ki’dra pressed on, folding her arms across her chest.  
  
“I threw myself off of a railing and into a pile of sweaty Yautja males to try to save my friend.” Her words were nonchalant as if it occurred all the time. She didn’t see the big deal in the matter.  
  
“That’s it.” The Yautja goddess unfolded her arms and walked out of the cell.   
  
Eris didn’t know how to take what she had said, or any of that experience. Had she come to get information to pass on? Was that her statement to the police Yautja? She would never know.   
  
It was hard for her to talk to Kidra at first, since her sentences weren’t completely formed, but she quickly got used to it. If anything, at least there was someone else who spoke English. Kidra seemed to understand all of the words that Eris used, surprising her. Kidra had the basic speech, not too much on plurals or formation, but she understood all of the extra words that Eris tossed in there. Maybe it was like people who can understand another language but not speak it back on Earth? If anything, she was grateful.   
  
Stopping her pacing, Eris let her shoulder blades hit the cool metal of the wall. Arching her neck up, the crown of her head shortly found the surface as well. She had been in there for so long and couldn’t wait for destiny to just get on with it. As if God himself heard her pleas, she found herself tilting her head to look over at Kidra.   
  
“How sleep?” Ki’dra’s encounters with oomans taught her about their typical pleasantries. Any time she saw two oomans greet each other, it typically started with something called ‘small talk’ before any of them would get on with the point. It was an interesting and wasteful practice that they did, but she would use their customs if she saw fit.   
  
“I slept alright,” the bed in the cell wasn’t particularly comfortable, but after a couple nights and nowhere else to go, anyone would have been able to sleep on it. “Are we close to the clan ship?”   
  
“You finally ask.” This ooman wasn’t like the other oomans she had met before that had been in this one’s exact situation. It wasn’t an uncommon thing for her to come across an ooman that was taken from Earth and enslaved by the Bad bloods while she traveled the void of space. She wasn’t sure how she became some sort of ooman liberator, but it came with the job that she had.   
  
Ki’dra made her living as a bounty hunter, catching Bad Bloods with high payout or killing creatures for those Yautja too injured or not strong enough to do it themselves that offered bountiful rewards. She had no problem working in teams, but typically ventured off by herself. Whenever she would apprehend a Bad Blood with an ooman female, or rarely an ooman man, in his chambers, she would take the creature on board and bring her back to the clan ship where the council would decide what to do with them. Leaving the oomans to die wasn’t something she was fond of, and if she were in charge, then the oomans would come back every time. It wasn’t their fault they were in this mess. Hell, they weren’t even supposed to know that her species existed.   
   
When Dachande had first asked her to join the mission in killing or capturing a Bad Blood, Ki’dra was a little hesitant at first. The male and female standing with her species was far different than that of typical breeds. Even though Dachande was an Elder, she still ranked superior over him, just not politically, so the fact that he was trying to enlist a female was a rarity in itself. When she learned that the mission involved closing in on Tichinde and his clan, Ki’dra was immediately on board. She had heard stories about Tichinde through more Yautja than just Dachande, making her want to see the being in the flesh. Dachande was strong enough to defeat such a Tarei’hasan, unworthy opponent, so she initially didn’t know why she was needed. It wasn’t until she remembered Tichinde’s trade that she knew why she would be valuable on this mission. Speaking ooman, Ki’dra would be a conduit between the two species had they come across Tichinde in his ooman transportation ship.   
  
Knowing that Tichinde was in the ooman trafficking trade, she knew they would either get his clan ship with many oomans or his personal ship with none. Hearing rumor of Tichinde through the cosmos, he was one to have never taken an ooman as a lover or a pet, so when an ooman was on his personal ship, she was caught off guard. When Dachande wanted to leave the ooman in front of her, she silently protested but wasn’t about to step in on the matter. Not her bounty, not her concern.   
  
Had they come across Tichinde’s bounty ship full of oomans, she knew they would have taken them all back. With only one, though, it was the leader’s call. Oomans who had been by themselves with a Yautja for some time often became hulij-bpe, crazy. They had been through such mental distress that there was usually no coming back from it. When the ooman before her began to stand up for herself back on the ship, Ki’dra knew she was far different than the ones she had encountered before, regardless of cutting a Yautja’s arm off.   
  
After her first initial conversation with this ooman, Ki’dra would notice the ooman ask more about the Yautja culture more than anything. She wanted to learn words to try to understand them more, which was an interesting feature, and what Bad Bloods really were. She never did give the ooman a description on what Bad Bloods were or what would cause you to become one, and the ooman didn’t press the issue. Her conversation was a breath of fresh air compared to the others she had encountered.   
  
Most of the ooman females she saved from the Bad Bloods were shy, crying little things until they learned that no harm was going to come to them, leaving them talkative in their wake. They asked: when something would happen, why something was going to happen, what was happening, how it all happened, and many more exhausting questions. This one in front of her, though, hadn’t really asked a single thing about her future. Now that she had, Ki’dra was interested on how she would react.  
  
“Have you been waiting for it?” Eris brought her green eyes to me Kidra’s golden ones. Everything about this Yautja was so similar, yet, so different from the males. Her facial features were the same, just fewer black spikes coming out of her face. Her hair, or what Eris perceived as hair, was the same as all of the other ones she had seen, except that hers had more of a chocolate brown hue to it than black. She had a slim figure but was toned as all get out. The muscles rippling underneath her skin was lean but powerful. Breasts only confirmed she was female, not too large nor invisible. Her legs probably had the strength to crush many skulls. Why that was her first thought when it came to Kidra’s thighs, she didn’t know.  
  
“Expected it.” Ki’dra noticed the ooman studying her, thinking nothing of it. It was normal for the oomans to study the bodies of Yautjas of either sex. “One ooman sleep cycle.” She answered her initial question.   
  
“Tomorrow.” Taking in a deep breath, she didn’t know how she felt about it. Waiting so long for her destiny to be revealed and now it was here. “Am I going to die?” Eris refrained from asking this question from the get go. If she knew she was going to die, it would have panicked her the entire time.   
  
“No die.” Ki’dra waited a moment to see if the ooman would ask any more questions. She studied her facial expressions and noticed they appeared to be that of a concerned ooman.   
  
Something about the species fascinated her. They were so emotional and had so many facial and body expressions that it was almost hard to keep up; not to mention their different scents, too. There were so many differences between the two, some that were quite crucial to the survival of oomans with Yautjas. One being showing their teeth. What an ooman would take as a ‘friendly smile’, a Yautja would only see signs of aggression and a challenge.   
  
It seemed that not only was Ki’dra a bounty hunter, she was also a bi-lingual interpreter in both body and actual language. She was able to help her clan ship realize that the acts of the oomans weren’t what they appeared they were. When she first started bringing them back to their ship for the council to take care of, they had thought the creatures to be challenging. It took Ki’dra a couple decades before her clan finally understood the acts of oomans fully.   
  
Being female, she was able to do what she did by bringing the oomans back to their ship. Females weren’t born as often as males, which led her to believe that’s why so many Yautja males, Bad Blooded or not, took ooman females. It disgusted her at first, but after a while she stopped caring. She had birthed her own pups a couple of times, all being male thus far. For her, she could have any male she wanted, but understood that not all males could mate with a female of her kind.   
  
Acts of mating for her was nothing more than a birthing right. With so few females it was her job to keep the clan strong. Only the strongest of warriors would be allowed into her body to pass down their lineage. If they could subdue her long enough to pass his seed, she would create a child for him. That pup would grow up to be a strong warrior and keep the clan at a thriving capacity.   
  
Males, she noticed, found pleasure in mating. Back before oomans came around, the male Yautjas worked harder in order to be able to pass down their bloodline. They didn’t know pleasure was an option until the first Yautja mated with an ooman. It started out as a rumor heard over the void from the Bad Blooded clans until it made its way to the Blooded community. Curiosity took over and Blooded warriors began to dabble in the hobby.  
  
It puzzled Ki’dra. Yautjas worked so hard to pass down their seed into pups, yet wasted the same substance on oomans who would never be able to birth a child for them. She found the hypocrisy absurd until she started to communicate with the creatures. They were quick witted and some even became part of their clan as warriors. What used to be known as a sin was now less taboo for her kind. Be it an ooman warrior, they could mate away to their hearts content. An ooman in servitude, though, was more frowned upon but still remained tolerable.   
  
The Blooded community never went to gather their own oomans, only inheriting them from the ones they had saved from the Bad Bloods. When brought to the council, they would evaluate the ooman mentally and physically. If they were well enough to serve the clan as a warrior, they would send them off to train for their Chiva alongside other Unblooded Yautjas. If not chosen to be a warrior, they were placed in servitude for the clan which held a plethora of responsibilities. If not deemed worthy of the first two options, their only saving grace would be a Yautja that would take them in, which only happened if the ooman wasn’t mentally stable. If an unstable ooman wasn’t claimed by a member of the clan, they would put the creature down. They were never permitted back on Earth.   
  
“Come,” Ki’dra spoke to the seemingly concerned ooman. “We walk ship.”  
  
“Alright.” Eris watched as Kidra’s dreads tossed in the air as she swiftly turned around to head about the ship. Following behind, she really wished she had a Fit Bit of some sort; maybe the gauntlet on her arm could be used as one.   
  
It took a couple days to get used to the weight on her left arm, and a couple more days for her to not be sore from it. She swore that if the device was ever removed from her arm, it would be monstrous compared to that of her right. Looking at it each day reminded her more of Tichinde, but he was something of the past now. Trying not to think about him, she continued on with Kidra.   
  
The ship was made from the same metal that Tichinde’s was. The strong steel lined every single wall with the red lights that accented it. Was it easier for them to see in this kind of light? She knew that if she made her own ship, it would be filled with bright lights so she could see everything clearly, which would also help it look less intense. They had to of done the same thing for themselves. Why make a ship spooky scary if you couldn’t really see in it? They were a smart species, she knew it wasn’t just for show.   
  
The same could be said about the heat on the ship. Temperatures were always high, which she was surprised she had survived it thus far. She remembered the cold nights from when she was homeless, begging for the weather to change a couple of degrees warmer. Now, she missed the cold from those nights.   
  
Walking passed what appeared to be a break in the wall, Eris looked at the pipes that were easily accessible inside. She could hear whatever was in them bustle around as an immense heat radiated from the area. The pipes were horizontal, an inch or two above each other to give room for maintenance. As she walked further along, the pipes curved vertically and into the ceiling. Wondering what kind of substance was in there, she could only guess if it was some sort of glycol or possible steam that ran through the metal cylinders.   
  
“What are these?” Eris stopped when they came across a cove in the ship. It was the same room that Tichinde had on his ship that she was never able to ask about. Skulls ranging in shapes and sizes decorated the walls from top to bottom. She recognized only a few of the skulls from the times she watched Tichinde butcher an animal from his living room sized freezer.   
  
“Trophy room.” Ki’dra stopped to look at the creatures, too. Being Dachande’s ship, she had never stopped to look inside of the room since it wasn’t with her own victories and stories. He was an Elder Yautja, which meant he was a strong older male, he had far surpassed the beasts of his Chiva. The trophies that decorated the walls were that of glorious beasts, some that she herself hadn’t conquered yet; not from lack of strength, but lack of time. She would soon be able to go on her own hunt, and while looking at these skulls, she would add one of them to her own room.   
  
“Tichinde had a couple of these.” Looking over at a long, curved skull she was glad that whatever it was, that it was dead. It had two sets of teeth, one that resembled a normal mouth and a smaller one hidden inside. One mouth from this creature seemed scary enough, let alone two sets of teeth. It was understandable that this creature was featured in these rooms. A battle with that thing didn’t seem like an easy task. Though, maybe if she saw what the body looked like it would be a different story. They were in a trophy room after all, so all of them must have been hard to take down.   
  
“I see.” Tichinde had defeated a xenomorph, which meant he had technically passed his Chiva. Being deemed a Bad Blood before completing his Chiva though, made him an UnBlooded no matter what he had done since his escapades on Ryushi. She wondered, however, what other trophies Tichinde had had in his show room. She would never know his infamous tale.

  
It was then Eris’ eyes shifted to a human skull that sat on a small pedestal in the corner of the room. Above it, a skull with the spine still connected to it. Out of all the beasts on the wall, she didn’t understand why human skulls seemed to decorate it. “Why is there a human skull here?”    
  
“Why not?” Ki’dra looked at the ooman staring at the skulls that belonged to her people a moment.   
  
“Out of everything here, they seem out of place.” Trying to calm her anxious mind, she peeled her eyes off of the familiar bones and back to the foreign ones. Everything here seemed animalistic, a challenge to the Yautja race. Here she was, on a ship that had possibly saved her from someone who was apparently evil, only to find out that they also kill humans for sport. She had read ‘The Most Dangerous Game’ and wasn’t about to be a willing participant had they really been going to a planet to hunt her on.   
  
“Oomans smart. Think, hide, craft, learn, evade.” The Yautja walked to the ooman skulls, “Try to live, but smart about it.” She had a few oomans in her trophy room as well. Though her kind didn’t traffic humans, they still dabbled in a hunt now and then. If the opponent was worthy, she’d take their skull to remember such an honorable match they had given her.   
  
“Do you hunt humans often?” Her interest was piqued. She never thought that in her time with the Yautjas that she would hear one say that they thought humans were smart. It seemed that her race was the bottom of the barrel to them the way they were sold and passed around. Here Kidra was though, talking about how they were some sort of great hunt. Eris didn’t know how to feel about that information, was she scared or was it a compliment to her?   
  
“Once a decade if time.” Yautjas had to keep their species a secret from other intelligent life forms. If they hunted knowledgeable creatures too much, their secret was bound to get out. Though oomans were smart, they still lacked intergalactic travel. If her information was correct, they had only been traveling their moon and orbiting planets for a short time. She had seen an ooman creation scouting deeper space in her travels, but they were far from ever seeing it with their own eyes. Because of this, the species as a whole was not permitted to know that Yautjas existed.   
  
“Are all Yautjas that way or just you?” How often had they come to her planet and killed humans? She began to think about all of the ‘missing people’ seen on websites and bulletin boards in grocery stores. Could the people she had seen perhaps been killed by a Yautja?  
  
“Decade at least, some longer. Can’t be caught.” Knowing English, Ki’dra still didn’t know how to use words all that well. She knew she didn’t portray what she wanted to say to the ooman female, but did to the best of her ability.   
  
“Why not more?” Eris seemed a glutton for punishment. There had to be a whole civilization of Yautjas out there, so why didn’t they all hunt humans? She felt if they had, Earth would definitely know about them. Was it like hunting an animal on Earth where it had to be the right kind of season and they had to have some sort of hunter’s permit?

  
“Far more planets than Earth.” Ki’dra didn’t know why this conversation interested her so much or why she thought her kind wanted to hunt them relentlessly. It just proved that her species wasn’t ready to know about all of the other life forms in the dark void of space. This ooman was fixated on her own species as if they were the center of the universe, but the truth was that there were millions of other planets out there with billions of other creatures far more challenging to hunt. Oomans had been a favorite because of their unique mindset, but they weren’t some sort of special trial.   
  
“How many do you have?” Whether it was something twisted in her mind or the fact that she just simply wanted to torture herself, Eris asked the question she wasn’t too sure she really wanted to know. It was like asking a murderer back on Earth how many people they had killed while being locked in a cell in their basement waiting to also be killed.  
  
“Two.” Turning to walk out of the trophy room that had caused much unwanted conversation, Ki’dra began to continue down the halls of Dachande’s ship.  
  
Two seemed like a small number, but that also depended on how old Kidra was. If she was only 20 years old, then that was a lot of humans to have killed since it seemed she could only do it once every decade. It would have meant she had taken every opportunity to kill one. Had she been something like 80 years old, not knowing how long these creatures lived for, then it wouldn’t have seemed like too many. Kidra had implied that they kept worthy prey in their trophy rooms, which would mean that she could have killed way more humans but didn’t think their battle was worthy enough to hang their skulls in her ship for eternity. She had to stop thinking about this.   
  
The more Eris learned about the Yautjas, the more she pieced together that they were an intelligent species that just simply liked to hunt. It didn’t seem like they did anything else, besides also dabbling in human trafficking. Her time with Tichinde showed her many animals from many planets that she had gotten to eat, which meant he would have had to go to each one of those planets to hunt them all. There was also the time he left her on a ship so that he could hunt, and the hunt that they were heading to before they were overpowered by these Yautjas. Taking her eyes off of the many foreign skulls, she began to follow Kidra.   
  
Hearing the tiny footsteps behind her, Ki’dra hoped that the conversation on hunting oomans was over. It didn’t make her uncomfortable to talk about, but if anyone was going to explain the ways of Yautjas to her, it would be from an ooman warrior on the clan ship. The warriors appreciated the Yautja ways whereas some of the oomans in servitude or those in pet positions spoke ill of them. She knew the female behind her would most likely get warrior or servitude out of the 4 possible options: Warrior, Servitude, Pet, Death. The last two didn’t seem fitting to her unless the council miraculously voted otherwise. After a small while of walking in silence, Ki’dra began to usher the ooman back to her cell chambers.   
  
“Get sleep, important day tomorrow.” Opening the cell entrance, Ki’dra watched as the ooman walked inside. She sat on her bed and looked up at her. “No die.” She repeated.   
  
“See you tomorrow, then.” Eris didn’t wait for Kidra to leave before she laid back down on her bed. It would be hours before she would fall asleep since it was still just the start of her day, but there wasn’t much else she could do. Thinking about the conversation she had had with Kidra and all of the questions and theories she now had, she was mentally exhausted. It felt like she had never used this much of her brain before. It was like the time back on Earth when she would forget a word or the name of someone she had met, she would spend hours upon hours trying to remember it before it would finally come to her. The weight she felt leave her shoulders when she had finally solved the puzzle was huge. This weight, though, wasn’t even close to being able to go away. She was solving a puzzle that she wasn’t even on the surface of being able to crack.   
  


* * *

  
  
The next morning hit her like a ton of bricks. Her stomach was sour, heart began to beat faster, and slight adrenaline started coursing throughout her entire body. Standing up from her bed, she knew it was only a matter of time before she would be on another clan ship where again her fate would be decided. Walking back and forth in her cell, Eris wondered what might happen to her. She could be dead in mere hours.   
  
Kidra’s words played in her head at the thought of dying. She claimed that that wasn’t the case for her, but maybe that was to keep her under control from a state of panic. After the first day being held captive in this ship, Pike had been the only reason she had survived. She was an emotional mimic, since there was no one else around, she would mimic the persona of Pike which had been working thus far.   
  
“Come with me.” Kidra’s voice startled her, not ready for someone to jump in on her deep thoughts to herself. Stepping outside of the cell, she grabbed the fur that Tichinde had given her. She used it each night by laying on top of or underneath it. His blood flaked away for the most part, leaving tiny stains on the pelt. Thoughts of their time together were etched in the back of her mind and she planned on keeping them there.   
  
“Have we arrived?” Eris looked up at Ki’dra as they walked side by side. This was the only Yautja she had any communication with for what seemed like weeks. She had seen the others, but never said a word to them. It took her a while to not look at the creature who killed Tichinde right in front of her in disgust. That was an unknown battle between the two of them that she would probably never understand. They were primal creatures doing what they naturally did best which was to kill.   
  
“Yes.” Ki’dra spoke to the ooman once more as they made their way to the exit of the ship. She was ready to be done with the mission and get back to other tasks at hand. Though she enjoyed oomans more than the average Yautja, she was ready to be by herself and not some caretaker. This was one of the reasons why she never claimed an ooman as a pet for herself. They were time consuming and she would have to supply everything to them to keep them alive. Their lifespan was only about a century or so, but even with how short oomans lived, she wasn’t even close to devoting that small amount of time to one. She liked socializing with them on the ship, but at the end of the day, she was able to go back to her own room or ship to be in peace. It was unfathomable that Yautja males could take on such a task where females rarely ever did so. Whenever an ooman was claimed as a pet, not being suitable for a warrior or in servitude, it was primarily males who took the oomans on. Ki’dra guessed that it was for the pure fact of mating that made the males so patient and willing to be with them.  Either way, it was their concern, not hers.   
  
Attempting to steady her heartbeat, Eris tried deep breaths to get her mind back in a calm state. She had been waiting for this day to come, but now she wished she was back in that cell. At least there she was alive, if you even called that living. Watching as Kidra opened the door, she let her eyes focus on everything outside of the ship. She felt taken back when all that was in front of her was another metallic hallway. When she had been taken off of the slave ship, it went right to the heart of the Yautja community.   
  
Allowing her legs to move, she followed behind Kidra, letting her lead the way. She hadn’t seen the other two males yet, but that wasn’t any of her concern. Cutting a sharp left from the hallway off the ship, they continued down more long stretches of metal before seeing any other living being.   
  
The room expanded where there were Yautjas talking amongst each other under the yellowish light above. It soothed Eris’ eyes from all of the red she had become used to. There were tables, ledges, a ring in the middle that she only assumed was for more fighting, strange statues, coves that led to other areas, and some similar stands that the market place had had. Looking around at everyone who was there, it felt like no eyes were on her. When she was in the market place that Tichinde had taken her to when he planned to sell her off, it seemed everyone was looking at her. Here though, she didn’t appear to be anything to see. Widening her eyes, she focused on a table that consisted of only humans.   
  
“Humans?” she questioned aloud. It made sense to her now that she wasn’t some hot commodity. They didn’t seem to be terrified at all, just talking at a table while eating strange looking food. There were both men and women, dressed in the attire of the Yautja people. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Were these humans equals? Scanning the room some more, she noticed more females wandering about in clothes that she was wearing. So, some equals and some not.  
  
“Saved from Bad Bloods.” Ki’dra didn’t bother turning around to talk to her face to face. She was bringing her to a holding area where oomans waited to be judged by the counsel. Then, she would talk to Dachande about her bounty in the matter. She hadn’t helped kill Tichinde, but she did spend many sleep cycles taking care of an ooman, so she was going to get her times worth. Dachande, being an Elder, was good for it.   
  
“Saved.” She felt like she was finally able to breathe. They had been like Yautja police, saving her from an apparently bad situation. Looking at all of the humans on the ship, there were at least 20 that she could physically see, not knowing how many others lingered throughout the ship. She wasn’t going to die.   
  
“Counsel decide what happen with you.” Ki’dra took the ooman’s attention off of the room and back on her. “I take you to a place while you be judged.”   
  
Kidra’s words didn’t concern Eris too much now that she knew that she wasn’t going to die. She was curious on how she was being judged, but just the sight that there were humans on this ship walking freely and not panicking about was on the forefront of her mind. Turning a corner from the opposite side of the room where they had entered, Eris looked back as much as she could to view the humans before the wall took over her sight.   
  
She passed by more Yautjas and humans while following Kidra to wherever it was that she was taking her to. Feeling more confident, she found that her strides weren’t small short ones anymore, but long ones to keep up with the Yautja. Everything seemed like a maze, not knowing where she was going. The halls led to more open rooms which led to more halls and so on until they finally made it to where they needed to be. With Kidra opening up the room, Eris stepped in without a fight.   
  
“This is where I’m being judged?” The room was a small box that had a bench on one side and plexiglass on the other. Walking to the glass, it seemed to be hovering over a room with a long table and 5 gigantic chairs. In front of the table were a few steps with a long red carpet that led directly underneath her floating box. It reminded her of a court room with no jury.   
  
“See you around.” Ki’dra spoke as she closed the door. She needed to find a member of the counsel to let them know that they had obtained another ooman that needed judgement. She needed to give her statement on the matter on what she felt the ooman could contribute to their clan, helping them to decide where to place her.   
  
With the door closing, Eris sat down on the bench. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was about to be judged on, but knowing that death wasn’t an option eased her. While seated, she could still see a bit of the room, but not too much. Deciding to stay as she was, she would stand up when and if she heard any sort of commotion going on down below. If it was anything like the fighting ring on the last ship, it was something she was going to want to see.  
  
It didn’t take long for Ki’dra to find a member of the counsel. They were easy enough to find out of everyone on the ship, usually frequenting the same places. They were older Yautjas who had earned their place in the matter. Though she ranked higher than them by being a respected female, she respected them in turn. “Nat’ka’pu,” She watched as the male elder stopped what he was doing to look at her.   
  
“Ki’dra,” he began, standing up to greet the female in front of him. He had mated with her once during mating season, siring a boy from her. A strong female indeed, though most were, but she was the most troubling to subdue. “You’re back. Where is Dachande?”   
  
“Finishing up some business before he heads to the counsel room.” Ki’dra didn’t know where Dachande was, but she knew that he was familiar in the process on oomans. Plus, he had to let the counsel know how the mission regarding Tichinde had gone.   
  
“The counsel room? Is Tichinde in custody?” Nat’ka’pu knew of the mission they had gone on in hopes of taking or killing the Bad Blood. When they had found a burnt ooman body floating around, they knew they had been close. Any Blooded Yautja knew that if they were to kill an ooman, they would leave no trace. Being as they found an ooman body, they knew it had to be from a Bad Blooded ship, knowing Tichinde led such a business.  
  
“He is dead.” The look on Nat’ka’pu’s face let her know that he would have rather had him in custody, but death was just as good. “But there is an ooman.”  
  
“Ki’dra,” a heavy scuff left his mouth while he looked at the respected female. One of the reasons taking Tichinde down benefited him was for the pure fact that they wouldn’t have to worry about judging and taking in as many oomans anymore since the business would surely shut down. He didn’t know why she was so fascinated with them. “We don’t need any more oomans in this ship.”  
  
“Then decide what to do with her.” Ki’dra barked back, turning around to head to the counsel room for the ooman’s judgement. She knew the counsel didn’t like her bringing back so many oomans, but had they not been mating with them they could have had a case against her. They profited from the oomans individually as much as the clan did. Ooman warriors, though weaker by comparison, were valuable to their clan. They were smaller, swifter, and typically gave good insight on complex situations.   
  
 It wasn’t long until Ki’dra was in the counsel room. When she had walked in, Dachande was already there waiting for the members to arrive. This process would go quick, as it usually did, then she could talk to the Elder about her payment from their voyage. As the counsel members each walked in and took a seat, everything was finally able to begin.   
  
“Dachande,” The Arbiter Bet-Karh spoke. “It is good to see you back. And you, Ki’dra.” He gave a nod to the female before continuing. “I suppose we’re here because you have news on Tichinde?” Being an Arbiter, he had the sole power on how someone would meet their fate. He was the judge, jury, and executioner. The input that his council members gave him was appreciated, but it was ultimately up to him.   
  
“Yes,” Dachande walked towards the table, stopping at the steps. “He is dead.” Each time he thought about Tichinde being dead brought satisfaction to his mind. It had been a long-time hunting, but he was finally able to kill his rival that had killed so many.  
  
“Excellent, then we may…” Bet-Karh was cut off, turning a displeased head in the direction of the Yautja who began to speak.   
  
“There is an ooman to judge.” Nat’ka’pu kept his sights on Ki’dra.  
  
“Just one?” Bet-Karh turned his head to face Dachande. “He only had one on his trade vessel?”  
  
“We caught him on his personal ship.” Dachande looked in the eyes of all the counsel members as he spoke, making sure not to keep his gaze too long to make them think he wished to challenge them. Though he was an Elder, the counsel still ranked over him. Whenever one of them were to die, he planned on taking their seat. “To our surprise, he had an ooman female as a pet.”  
  
Looking over at his fellow counsel, Bet-Karh thought long and hard about it. It was up to the mission leader whether or not to kill a single ooman if they were to come across one. “So Ki’dra let her live.” He spoke after a moment, looking at the female. She was known for saving oomans, never having discarded one on her many missions no matter how crazed the ooman was.  
  
“No, I let her live and board my ship.” The Elder could feel the confused glares of the seated Yautja.   
  
Taking his eyes off of Ki’dra, Bet-Karh focused once more on Dachande. “I am surprised you spared the single ooman.” Unlike Ki’dra, Dachande had never brough an ooman back to the clan ship to be judged. It was odd that the Yautja female had nothing to do with the decision on the ooman’s life.    
  
“I had plans to leave her on the ship, I even raised my Sivk’va-tai at her.” he began, recalling his events, “But her lack of fear in the face of death made me let her board. I believe she would make a decent warrior.” Remembering the look on her face when he pointed his weapon at her, she hadn’t flinched a bit, but instead encouraged him to kill her if he were to leave her there. It was an uncommon reaction for an ooman to have when facing death.   
  
“Then you may train her as such.” The Arbiter stood up, already making his decision without seeking advice from his counsel. “She will stay with you while you train her on how to become a warrior.” This was a ruling he had never done before. When Ki’dra had started bringing the oomans back, the only reason he hadn’t stuck her with the same verdict was strictly due to the fact that she was female. Angering her and causing her to join a new clan would hinder the clan greatly. Her sex was the only thing that let her save the oomans. She had been the only one to ever bring an ooman back to the ship. Now that a male was doing it, though, he would use that as a lesson to all males who tried to bring a new ooman into their clan.   
  
“Arbiter, I haven’t trained in decades, let alone trained an ooman.” Dachande tried to keep his composure, refraining from flaring his mandibles at him. Had he known his statement would leave the ooman on his ship, he wouldn’t have spoken at all. This was a punishment he had never given before, why was he starting now?  
  
“You are one of the most respected leaders this clan, any clan, has ever known. Your reputation among the stars is nothing but glory. I am sure you, Dachande, can take this ooman and make her a warrior.” Bet-Karh spoke truthfully. He had always liked Dachande, even had his pups train underneath him, but something had to be done about the amount of oomans their clan contained. They didn’t hinder them much, but they still held them back status wise. He would not let his clan’s name fall.   
  
The Arbiter was trying his patience. Darting his eyes to Ki’dra before looking back at Bet-Karh, Dachande knew there was nothing he could do or say to change his mind. “Alright.” He couldn’t hold his voice as it hissed at his commander before he turned around to leave the room, he had a Chiva to get ready for.   
  
Eris couldn’t tell what had happened in the room below, she couldn’t even hear them. When she saw the Yautja that had killed Tichinde turn around abruptly and leave the room, she didn’t really know what to think. It was a ruling about her, so why was he mad about it? Did he want her dead? If that was the case, then he should have just done it on Tichinde’s ship.   
  
It was only moments before the door to her container opened, showing the disgruntled Yautja in its wake. He dramatically turned around once more, which made Eris wonder if he wanted her to follow him. Stepping out of the container to trail the angered beast, she stayed a few feet behind him just in case this wasn’t something she should be doing. She didn’t want to know what would have happened had she not followed him and made him have to come all the way back to get her.  
  
Trailing behind him, she found herself passing all of the places she had already explored with Kidra until they were back in the area where she had seen humans for the first time. Looking around some more, it was then she stopped focusing on the raging Yautja in front of her and on one of the humans at a table. Cara?   
  
Eris couldn’t believe her eyes. Was she really looking at a familiar face on this clan ship? The last time she had seen her friend was when another Yautja was hauling her away. Hearing her scream her name in terror was a sound that had haunted her dreams almost every night.   
  
“Cara?!” Turning her direction to head towards the table, a smile formed on her face when the short blonde-haired girl turned to look at her.   
  
“Pike?!” The brown eyed girl said in turn, practically falling down as she stood up from her table to meet with her long-lost friend.   
  
“What are you doing here? I mean, how? I just…” Eris met the embrace of her friend as they both began to cry over the other’s shoulder. She couldn’t believe that Cara was here. Out of all the places to find her, especially after seeing what her fate looked like back on the slave ship, she never imagined this would be it.   
  
A pain formed on her shoulder.   
  
“Go!” The angered Yautja whipped the ooman around before grabbing her by the arm to usher her back to his ship. He wasn’t about to let her sit here and reminisce when he had to train her up for her to get out of his hair already.  
  
“Cara!” Eris called back to her friend, but noticed that Cara’s face seemed different this time.   
  
“You’ll be back, I know it! He’s here all the time!” Cara shouted from behind them.  
  
Eris wasn’t too sure what was happening, but Cara’s words stayed in her mind. If she had recognized the Yautja dragging her away, then what she was saying must’ve been true. They all looked the same to her so far, besides those who were obviously female, so for her friend to know this particular Yautja spoke volumes. But for now, at least, she had nothing to do but trust Cara’s words and pray she would be back to see her once more.   
  
  



End file.
